


An Alternative Change in Lifestyle

by epitomizedTyrant



Series: RWBY VS Remnant [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blake Belladonna should probably not be as surprised about her friends hijinx at this point, Blood and Gore, Dreams, Eye Trauma, F/F, F/M, Future AU, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Low-key Hijinx, Low-key fluff, M/M, Multi, Post Salem, Post War, Ruby Rose is OP, Ruby Rose should probably see a psychiatrist, Slow Burn, Team RWBY is comprised of walking disasters and you all know it, Weiss Schnee is a BAMF, low-key angst, medium burn?, ruby centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:09:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 37,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epitomizedTyrant/pseuds/epitomizedTyrant
Summary: Years have passed since Remnant last saw war, and the world itself has barely recovered from Salems dark crusade. Blake has long since re-centered her life, taking leadership of the White Fang and returning them to their roots, with a louder voice and more sway than ever.  Ruby hunted, and hunted, and hunted, alone she hunted the greatest grimm on remnant, succeeding in every battle. Weiss took over the SDC, and Yang stayed in the Vale military to try and save the world in her own way.As if their lives weren't full enough, one day Yang unceremoniously dumps a kid into the laps of Ruby and Blake, with no warning or explanation.REWRITE IN PROGRESS COMPLETION 2/16





	1. Look what the cat dragged in

Ruby Rose was 15 when she enrolled in Beacon, seventeen when Atlas invaded the world and twenty one when Vale delivered the finishing blow.

  
  


She was twenty eight when she stumbled exhausted into the house she allegedly shared with her three teammates. It seemed like Blake was the only one who was ever here, the other two always had work, often on the other continents, Blake however was working on faunus rights activism in Vale. The propaganda of the last war had really hurt Mistrals reputation and as such they lost most of their cultural relevance.Vales role as mediator and victor gave it a lot more sway. Atlas was rapidly moving backwards due to the economic ruin it experienced, and Vacuo had generally never cared much for racism.

          Weiss was always extremely busy running the Schnee Dust Company, which required her to be either out of the house or out of the country pretty much constantly. Yang was an investigator or spy or something for Vale, so she was always busy too. Ruby herself rarely had long hunts like the one she had just returned from, which took eight days of tracking and a day of fighting. Usually she would be out exterminating a nest of deathstalkers or nevermores, which took a lot less time than tracking down an elder King Taiketsu. Man that had been a trip down memory lane.

          She really hoped Blake wouldn't worry about her when she saw the damage. Ruby was sure to get a couple new scars from this one, and she was going to have to repair her left arm again. Maybe this time she would get around to that redesign. She still hadn't settled on a direction for the redesign/upgrade, though she was thinking about either more dust storage or a little emergency grenade launcher. Maybe a tiny pile bunker. Make fighting robots easier at least.

          That bloody arm was determined to break at the smallest thing. Ever since that witch’s pet had ripped it off her it was just one thing after another. And sure, maybe a human arm would have been hurt blocking a stab from wacky tube grimm but still. It was supposed to be a badass cyborg arm. Shouldn't it at least take a little more damage before breaking?

          She realized that she had been mumbling about it as she limped inside, heavily leaning on her scythe. Blake heard her apparently because soon she turned the corner, ears turned down in worry and wearing a very Blake looking blouse and black jeans. When she finished dragging her eyes up and down Ruby’s beaten body, carefully noting the rips and blood that was soaked into the various rips and tears in the high necked and tight fitting metal studded shirt. After lingering on a particularly long tear on her thigh, and the mostly aura healed scar beneath, she somehow looked even more concerned. It was totally healed. Almost.

          “I’m fine. Wacky inflatable tube grimm just showed up at an inopportune time for me.” Ruby interjected before Blake could say anything. Just as she finished tracking down an elder King Taiketsu and was already engaged was the exact point that said grimm showed up. Blake didn't need to know that, though. For some reason Blake worried about Ruby way more than anyone else, even though Ruby thought Yang had the more dangerous job. You couldn’t end every spy mission or whatever with just killing everything that tried to stop you, after all.

          “I think fine usually means that you can lift both arms and walk unaided.” Blake grumbled.

          “Eh”

          “I think that somehow we actually have bigger problems than your blatant disregard for your own survival.” Blake gestured back toward the kitchen.

          “Why? What's in the kitchen?” Ruby asked as she followed Blake. “Also I am perfectly safe out there, I am a professional and there is a child sitting at the kitchen table. Blake, why is there a child sitting at a kitchen table?”

          Sure enough a child sat in one of the kitchen chairs looking quietly at a bowl of cereal. He was small, at most nine or ten, his hair was a dull orange and his skin a quiet olive shade. His clothes looked suspiciously like military distributables.

          “Your sister” Well Blake was certainly pissed at Yang, “brought him home a couple days ago. No real explanation, just told me to take care of him and left. She didn’t look like she was hurt, unlike some people. Ruby.”

          “Im fine.” She grumbled and walked over to the table. She knelt beside the young boy. “Hey, hi, I’m Ruby Rose! I don't usually look like I’ve been kicked half to death, but I just got home from a hunt you see.”

          She shifted as she knelt and duct tape that had been holding her forearm to her upper arm chose that moment to give way and it clattered loudly to the ground out of her sleeve. Ruby sucked in her breath at the intense tick of pain that was the last wire between the two parts of her arm was yanked free, tripping the safety release and gently ejecting the shoulder joint as well.

          Ruby sighed deeply as her left arm stopped clattering to the floor and drooped her head a bit. Blake wasn’t gonna be happy about that.

          “Ruby… was your arm duct taped to your body?”

          “No, just the forearm!” Ruby said with deceptive cheerfulness.

          “Ruby...”

          “I got triple hazard pay because of tube boi. It all worked out! I wasn't trying to hide it from you I just needed to carry it home!” She had _absolutely_ been trying to hide it from Blake.

          “Mhm.” Blake was giving her a **_look_**.

          “So hey, what’s your name?” Ruby asked as she turned back to the kid.

          “He has been refusing to speak. I'm not sure if he’s mute or traumatized or just dealing with emotions. Yang told me nothing and we are going to have words next time she’s around.”

          “Hey, can you communicate using nods and such?”

          Much to Blake's major and Ruby’s minor surprise he nodded.

          “Okay, uhm, can you talk or do you just not want to?” pause “Oh shit sorry, can you speak?” Slow nod “Okay, uh, are you feeling well?” another slow nod “Do you like this cereal?” pause “Blake gave you that bran shit didn’t she?”

          “It’s healthy!” Blake indignantly interjected.

               “Yeah but it sucks. Here.” She took his bowl to the counter and brought out a new one. “Sugar Rush Volatile Berry Bombs, Pumpkin Pete’s, or Cookie Kings Valhalla?” Ruby asked as she lined them up on the counter for him to point at.

          He timidly pointed at the Cookie Kings box making Ruby grin. “You have excellent taste, little dude.” She reached for it while she turned back to continue talking and then stopped dead as her hand passed through it feeling nothing. Because she was grabbing with her left hand. Which was currently laying on the floor. She blushed hard and turned back to use her right hand.

          Blake watched her with a bit of worry on her face, which the kid seemed to be observing as he had turned to watch her after Ruby had turned away. She gave him a small smile when she noticed.

          Blake had barely stopped herself from walking over and doing the pouring for Ruby. It took a year of living with Ruby to realize how insecure she really was about that arm. Especially when she didn't have it. She was far too careless with it, and Blake often wondered whether it was because she was quietly angry at the arm or whether it was just because it was made of steel and was objectively tougher than the fleshy one.

          She hated seeing her friends hurting. Weiss coming home a little tipsy after a bad business trip was sad, but Blake understood. She did the same after she got ignored at a rally or the White Fang popped up in the news cycle again.

Yang never came home with more than a bruised eye or arm in a sling. She always seemed like she felt accomplished and proud of her work too. She’d often come home and regale whoever was home with tales of her going undercover in masquerade balls or stealing drugs from a criminal organization as part of a sting.  Yang still felt like a part of herself was lost with her arm, but she had stopped treating the prosthetic as foreign object to be suspicious and wary of.

Ruby was the worst of them of course. It wasn’t just that Ruby was the only one that was around most, letting Blake see her little day to day weaknesses and injuries. It was that she undoubtedly had the most dangerous job. Ruby almost always came back from a job with some injury or damage. Sometimes her clothes were just a little ripped, and Blake didn't mind that so much. Then somedays Ruby would come through the door limping and bloodied, arm limply hanging at her side while she leaned heavily on that scythe. She kept fighting things most hunters would demand a team for. The King Taiketsu was one thing, but fighting it and a Nuckelavee at the same time was damn near suicidal for _groups_ of experienced huntsman.

          Yang and Weiss never saw this Ruby. Blake really didn't think they saw her physically much at all. They usually kept up to date with each other quite well, calling each other several times a week and texting every day. Except when Ruby broke her phone for the hundredth time on a mission, or Yang had to go radio silent, or when Weiss was feeling paranoid about corporate espionage.

          Blake was pulled from her thoughts when Ruby set the bowl down in front of the kid and started up her questions again.

          “Do you have a name?” Nod “Do you mind writing it down so we don't have to keep calling you kid?” He nodded and she walked over to the corner of the countertop and grabbed a pen and a note pad. He took a moment between nomming down spoonfuls of Captain Cookies to scratch on the note pad. Ruby immediately slapped the sticky note on the freezer door.

          “Alright, Saffron.” Ruby said walking over beside Blake and addressing the young boy. “Blake and I are gonna go get a room ready for you, feel free to get more cereal! We can always buy more.”

          With that she pulled Blake from the room towards the stairs. “He gets Yang's room for now.” Ruby whispered, and Blake chuckled, completely agreeing with her.

 

          Ruby pulled Blake into Yang’s room and shut the door behind her. Blake glanced around the ridiculously yellow themed room. Yang had the walls coated in posters and ornaments except for the small space above her desk where the original schematics and doodles for Ember Celica were tacked up. The walls themselves were painted black, but so little of it was visible that you would never realize it wasn’t just poster backdrop. Blake had no idea where Yang had gotten such consistently colored posters, without… hang on…. There was a duplicate! And another!  Not even blake was willing to stoop that low for her motifs, and she barely stuck to them on a day to day basis.

          Ruby quietly leaned back against the door and sighed deeply. “What the fuck? Whaaaat the fuck have you done Yang.”

          Blake watched Ruby slide down the door into a sitting position before matching her sigh and sitting down cross legged in front of her. “I don't know what’s happening anymore. He’s been here two days now and I feel very lost. Did you see the nibs?”

          “I… What?” Ruby looked up at her confused at the abrupt turn of conversation. .

          “He’s a faunus. Deer. He has little antler nubs.”

          “Oh. huh.”

          “I'm really quite angry at Yang right now. This is really irresponsible of her. She didn’t even know if you would be home and I'm in no way suited to be a caretaker. She didn’t even say where he came from or why.” Blake said without a hint of ire in her voice, just a general tired malaise soaked her words rather than a biting vitriol.

          “Like I would do better. I tried to feed Zwei dust infused treats when I was fourteen. Did you try calling her?” Ruby dragged her hands down her face.

          “I've left… six? Yeah, six messages. I've heard nothing back.” This wasn’t Yang's usual modus operandi. Usually she was actually one of the better ones about communicating with the team. Which of course meant that the kid had to be related to spy work. Blake didn’t really know how to feel about that.

          “I have a hunt next week, I’ll only be gone a couple days.” That took Blake rather off guard.

          “I need to go to a couple meetings in two days. I had this week off because of some bomb threats.” She replied after a moment, realizing what

          Ruby started and the two of them met each other's eyes for a moment. An old steel was shimmering in Ruby’s eyes. “Do you need me to hunt for you?” Ruby reached over and squeezed Blake's hand.

          “No… Not yet.” Blake chuckled. “We get them all the time, it would be fine but there was a big dust robbery in town recently.”

          “They are still threats. I could still deal with them for you.” Ruby rubbed her hand gently

          “It's just assholes trying to scare us into submission most likely”

          “They still threatened you. I… I would hunt them for you if they threatened even one of _your_ friends. For you I will reap them like fields of grain.”

Blake gave Ruby and uncertain look. She probably hadn’t meant to say that as ominously as she had. “I, uh, thanks Ruby… So yeah. How was your hunt? Apart from getting the shit beaten out of you.”

          The red woman nodded and shrugged. She leaned back a bit but kept Blake's hand. “Eh, I've had worse beatings. I got to cook some venison. Usually I'm not out there long enough to properly stalk prey but that King Taiketsu was damn slippery. And then I found him. Aaand then inflatable tube grimm found me destroying that Taiketsu which went from cakewalk to, well, you saw my arm.” Ruby finished with a giggle and finally let go of Blake's hand so she could collapse fully against the door.

          They sat in silence for a couple minutes. Blake liked when Ruby was home. Especially now, it was comforting that she wasn’t in this alone. It might be only a week. It might be a month. Years. She really had no idea what Yang had been thinking dumping the kid on her. She couldn't take care of a kid could she? Neither could Ruby. Ruby would probably try to teach him to use a scythe or some crazy gun.

          “Wanna go down to the range this weekend?” Ruby finally asked.

          “Yeah, it's been a couple weeks. Ugh, What do we do with Saffron?”

          “Bring him. I can bring some of the smaller guns. Maybe that one Atlas lmg.” Ruby stretched and stood. “Alright. Lets figure this shit out.”

          Ruby offered her hand for a help up and Blake took it gladly. It was such a rough texture to be paired with the gentle grip. Blake felt strangely comforted by the touch. No not strangely Blake supposed, Ruby had always been a comforting presence.

          The hall was covered in photos, mostly landscapes and scenic views that Velvet had taken for her. There was a pair of photos that blake treasured especially. Everytime she passed them she took a moment to look and think. One was a photo of the four of them sitting together on a cliff overlooking a beautiful forest valley. The sun was setting in the distance. It was taken three months before the end of the war, just days before they fought Salem.

          The other photo was taken from a bullhead looking down on what was left of a battlefield. The four of them were in the center, staggering toward the evacuation site, Yang and Blake were supporting Ruby between them. Rubys bandages were so stark in contrast to the grey rubble. The blood from the stump of her arm painted the wraps in bright red splotches. Yang’s leg and Blake's stomach were bandaged up as well and sported nearly as much blood, and Weiss had bright angry looking burns all across her right side. But all of them had big, goofy smiles on. They were walking home victorious and Ruby wouldn't stop telling them she was “All right now” and Yang kept complaining how everything was “left” in her hands.

          She thought about that day a lot. She always held it as proof that victory was attainable. Every time she was up against something she thought was impossible, she remembered that day, and she remembered that they had _won_. They won even if they could barely move and wound up in a hospital for weeks. It gave her the strength to move on. It hadn't been helping her deal with the challenge of the kid, though. _“We aren’t fighting here.”_ she answered a question that had been on her mind for a couple days as she followed Ruby back down the stairs. _“Honestly I don't know what we are doing.”_

          Saffron had remained sitting at the table, though it appeared he finished his cereal a few minutes ago. “Hey, feel free to get yourself whatever you need, kid.” Ruby said. “You're not under arrest. Probably. Are you? Did Yang say why you were here? She’s the blonde one with the floofy hair.” Saffron looked down at his empty bowl shyly. “Hey I’ll be right back.” Ruby headed down to the basement.

          After a few minutes, Ruby walked back in, completely rearmed. This one certainly was lacking in comparison to the combat model she had been using. Blake always thought it looked like stick arm. It was made of simple metal cylinders. The basic proportions were all correct, but unlike the combat arm outside of the hand and part of the elbow, it had no real shape. Blake knew that arm could take a variety of different attachments that Ruby used for working down in the basement. Everyone avoided the basement; at some point it had truly become Ruby’s domain. Weiss went there once and came out a changed woman.

          There was silence as Ruby rifled about in the fridge. Every time the huntress came back from a mission, the first thing she would do would be to beeline it to the kitchen and see what was being stored there. Then, she would inevitably get on to Blake about her almost exclusively cup noodle diet.

          Ruby was oddly quiet about it as she pulled out some ingredients for… a late dinner? Blake didn’t notice the time passing and hadn't caught the transition to afternoon, much less when it became dinner time. Ruby cooked up some nice and fluffy omelets and the three of them ate dinner together. Blake wondered when all of team RWBY would be sat around this table again. The last time they had all eaten together was nearly a year ago during the last Vytal festival. It had been so wild coming back from the arena. Ruby had to autograph things because people kept coming up to her and she was too nice to say no. Apparently among hunter enthusiasts, the name of Ruby Rose still held some weight even though most had forgotten about her in the years since the end of the war.

          “Hey Rubes, who won the last Vytal festival?”

          “It was the rifle girl, the one on the team with the pile bunker lady.”

          “Oh right. I liked that team.”

          They continued to share in some small talk throughout dinner. The weather had been nice if a bit humid lately. Beacon was planning a small festival soon. Such was the gist of the conversation until the three had finished. Saffron took a bit longer than the other two, who had both wolfed down their food between spurts of conversation.

          Ruby stood and walked over to Saffron, patting him on the shoulder with her right hand. “C’mon kid, let’s go sleep.”

          Saffron followed Ruby quietly up the stairs and Blake followed after him. He took a moment to look around the yellow themed room. Blake helped him onto the unnaturally large bed and showed him how to turn on Yang's TV. A while back Yang had asked Ruby to install a TV at the base of her bed, and Ruby had installed it all right. In such a way that it could retract into the floor. Blake thought it was a bit extra. Weiss demanded Ruby make all the tvs stowable, to which she had happily obliged.

          “Great parents we are, just tossing him a tv remote.” Ruby whispered jovially under her breath.

          Blake was taken a bit aback by that statement. Even though it was just a joke, the idea of them being parents… together… Blake shook her head, making it look like she was shaking it at Ruby rather than trying to clear her head.

          After properly tucking in their guest, the two of them quietly made their way down to the living room. For what it was worth, Blake sat gently down on the couch, while Ruby fell into a sprawl across it, head in Blake's lap and feet kicked over the far end.

          “So. I guess I missed a couple episodes of Vale got Talent, huh?”

          “Yeah.”

          The TV extended from the wall in an unnecessarily complex extension sequence. It was actually kind of awesome.

 

          Morning broke through Blake’s eyelids like the saving grace of a collapsed mine. A weight much like that of a person pressed down on her side. Her eyes slowly cracked open to see Ruby drooling on her stomach, sleeping gently. At some point during the night, Blake had laid down and apparently Ruby crawled up her in her sleep. Her metal arm stretched out to her side and her regular one curled beneath Blake's back a bit.

          Ruby’s cloak had been pulled up to her head like a blanket. This wasn’t an uncommon scene; whenever Ruby came back from a long hunt she would get to a point where all of her exhaustion would catch up with her. This usually happened when they sat down on the couch to watch the shows Blake recorded for her while she was away. It never took much time for the huntress to fall asleep on Blake, who simply couldn't muster the strength to stay awake when another warm body was right on top of her.

          The faunus woman tried to think of any reasons she had to get up, but the couch was so warm and pleasant… If there was anything planned today it was far pushed from her mind. She picked up the remote from the end table and put the TV on standby so she could adjust the volume before turning on the news.

          The newsperson was a suspicious doppelganger for Lisa Lavender, who had been involved in a witness protection program after the war. From what Blake had heard, Lisa’s first and primary love in life was field reporting and she had gotten into something she shouldn’t have in Atlas. Apparently she was home despite claiming to be “Elisa Thistle” who was allegedly a completely different news reporter.

          “One week ago, during turmoil at the Mistral embassy Senator Enrique’s son, Saffron, disappeared. No demands have been made as far as we know, but Enrique is a major political force right now in Mistral, as he is both a very wealthy businessman, and holds a seat in the Mistralan senate. The turmoil was caused by the foiling of a major heist. The goal of which, was to steal the massively well known ‘Dancer in the Boreal Valley’ painting -worth a few million lien.”

          _Oh._ thought Blake. _OH god DAMN IT Yang._ She felt like smashing her head against the cushions. So, Yang had stolen a child and dumped him in their laps with no warning or explanation whatsoever. One that was no doubt targeted by both a government and a criminal organization. The perfect articulation for her emotions at that moment were along the lines of “Sjadsfniwblarglargle”. Instead, she just growled a bit and kept watching.

          “In more local news, grimm numbers near Vale are at last on the decline. A long series of victories have been won against their hordes. Many of which stem from a mysterious, unnamed hunter. Their most recent hunt took down a elder King Taiketsu that was making reclamation efforts in the area essentially impossible.”

          Blake had absolutely no doubt that team JNR would soon be calling up the crimson burrito laying on her to demand why she had taken on something so large alone. Then Ruby would probably tell them about the wacky inf- Nuckelavee. She was picking up some bad habits from Ruby it seemed.

          She had the feeling that today was going to be a long day.

          “Several office buildings have been closed as well due to a series of bomb threats. Most of them targeted on the faunus rights activist, Blake Belladonna and her associates. The police are investigating, and there are some worries that this may be tied to the recent dust robberies. Later tonight, we will be interviewing some leading professionals on the dangers of dust infused IEDs. Both to the public, and those who make them.”

          _I should make Ruby watch that. She was talking about making more det packs the other day._

“Vale is holding its first continental tournament in two weeks. This will be hosted at Beacon Academy and will be accepting contestants from the three smaller schools in the country: Flare, Shutter, and East academies. There has also been discussion of a combat primary school tournament for schools like Signal to compete in. The fairgrounds at Beacon will be opening up to a slightly scaled down festival to the public so be sure to check that out. Beacon is, as it always has been, a place of excellence and genius.”

          Blake couldn’t help but sigh. She often wished that she had gone back to school after the war to get her official hunters certification, as well as just finishing the courses. Not so that she could be a hunter, just so that she could maybe provide Ruby with some back up occasionally. She, Weiss, and Yang had all immediately moved on to other jobs after the war, only Ruby went back to school to get certified. It made plenty of sense, as Ruby was the only one whose dream was to become a Huntress. Blake had been looking for a way to make up for her time in the White Fang, as well as help progress faunus rights. Weiss was looking to fix her name’s legacy, and Yang was out for adventure.

          They really had fulfilled their dreams. Blake was so proud of them all, she only wished they were together more. Oh well. She smiled down at Ruby still slumbering softly on her stomach. At least she had Ruby here right now.

         

          An hour later, Saffron poked his head around the wall. Blake was sleeping peacefully, her hand resting on Ruby's head who was in turn looking up at her face with a faint smile pulling at her lips. Saffron flinched back when the huntresses eyes snapped to him. He knew for sure that he had been utterly silent, he was very good at being quiet. He had to be around his family.

          “Hey Saff. C’mon in. Can't believe we slept this late. Blakey, c’mon wake up.” Saffron poked his head around the wall again to see Ruby straddling cat woman, her cloak gently falling over her shoulders. She was looking gently down at her raven-haired companion. “Blaaaake.” she scooted up a bit so that she was straddling Blake's waist. Ruby leaned down and put her hands on Blake’s shoulders, shaking her slightly. Blake responded by grumbling and batting at the red woman's arm.

          “Ohh no, my support has been knocked away! Oh nooooo.” Ruby gently fell onto Blake who grumbled, “Fine, fine. I'm up.” Ruby obstinately refused to move. “Ruuubyyy.” the warrior responded with a playful grunt. Blake tried to push the shorter woman off of her but couldn’t. “How much do you weigh?”

          Eventually Ruby relented and rolled off of her and deftly into a standing position by the couch. “I'm all muscle, Blakey.”

          “I bet.” Blake said as she stood and stretched, with all the grace of a cat just waking up with a crick in her back. “I have seen what you do to packs of cookies and strawberries. You monster.”

          “Yo, Saff. You gotten yourself breakfast yet?” Ruby turned her attention back to the little boy. Blake glanced over and nodded at him.

          He shook his head. He had been up for about two hours now but hadn’t wanted to leave his room. Eventually he figured that they probably were expecting him to just come down when he was ready. Turns out that they were just lazy.

          Saffron had spent the last few days thinking in circles about why he was here. His father was important, and this wasn’t the first time he had been kidnapped. Unlike last time, he hadn't been just locked in a room and slid food through a slit until his father paid up. This was so much different. His… Captors? Seemed to have no idea why he was even here and the blonde woman who kidnapped him in the first place apologized the whole way, and told him it was as much for his protection as anything else.

          It was all very confusing. They were the kindest people he had ever met., but surely they had some nefarious purpose. The new one had been really beat up when she first got home, but had also been in a wonderful mood and had been so kind to him. So very confusing...

          “Hey, you want Cookie Kings or Pumpkin Petes? I uh… the Berry Bombs are gone.” Ruby interrupted his thoughts from the kitchen.

 _Cookie Kings,_ he tried to respond, but he still couldn't get his mouth to open. He didn't feel scared anymore, though. Maybe tomorrow he would be able to talk again. Maybe then he could try and contact home - if he even wanted to go home. _No, I mustn’t think like that._ He thought as he walked into the kitchen to point at the right cereal.

 

          Blake watched Saffron, quietly wondering about that consternated look on his face. She followed him into the kitchen where Ruby had sat him down with some cereal and orange juice. She herself was rooting around in the fridge, no doubt hunting for some strawberry yogurt to mix with the marshmallow flakes. Blake herself grabbed a toaster strudel and dropped it in the sharp old pet project that was what they had affectionately named “Toaster Rose”.

          “We should get Saffron some actual clothes.” Blake announced. “We can't just keep making him wear those same refugee slacks.”

          “Agreed. We can go shopping today. Hey Saff, grab a notepad and pen so you can communicate with us today, okay?” The young boy nodded. “We need more ingredients too. And more Berry Bombs. And I could use some parts for my arm...”

          “Do we need ammo for our trip to the range this weekend?”

          “I’ll check my stores. I can make plenty for Gambol Shroud tonight, and I’ll take the twins out for an official test run. The only thing we might need is dust for the Atlas stuff. You want to come shoot with us, Saff? You can try out an Atlas LMG.” Saffron looked unsure, so Ruby continued. “You won't have to shoot if you don't want, but you will come with us to the range. Shooting is fu-” She paused. “Unless gunfire would be bad for you?” He shook his head. “So you can come to the range then?” a nod. “Cool.”

          “The twins?” Blake cocked an eyebrow.

          “Yeah, I want to try out some new weapons. Crescent Rose is always going to be my first love, and my brawl gear is never going to leave my loadout, but I still want to learn something new.”

          “Didn’t you try to make a whipsword a couple months ago?”

          “Yup!”

          “Didn’t you nearly kill yourself trying to use it?”

          “Nah, I didn't lose more than 27% of my aura.”

          “You did, however, destroy the backyard and a lot of the siding.” Her strudel was launched three feet in the air at the perfect moment to punctuate her sentence.

          “Eh heh.”

          Blake just shook her head at that. ‘Destroyed the siding’ had been a bit of an understatement. She and Weiss had walked out of the house to see the siding covered in hundreds of long cuts, the ground torn up as though ten rototillers drove across it, and Ruby suspended from a tree by the bizarre weapon she had made. When questioned, Ruby had just mumbled something about videogames, Sun Wukong, alcohol, and a dare. Upon trying to convince her to stop doing this sort of thing, Ruby had merely shouted “Death or Glory” and disappeared in a cloud of rose petals. The siding was in perfect condition the next day, however. Ruby always had been one to clean up after herself.

          “After we finish eating, I'll get dressed and we can take off.” Ruby said as she stirred her cereal into a yogurt cup. “We can take Ladybug.”

          “I'll drive.” Blake quickly responded through a mouthful. Saffron glanced at her, apparently noting how much quicker it had been than Blake's usual responses, and that Blake usually made sure her mouth was empty before speaking.

          “Nah you can relax. I'll drive!” The huntress said with a wide smile.

          “Remember last time you drove, Ru?”

          Ruby’s entire demeanor shifted from happy to indignant. “That was bullshit! We fought a giant fucking robot in the middle of a highway and no cops showed up! Remember when we had that car chase? When we were trying to run way on Bumblebee? No cops showed up then. So why do I get pulled over when I go a teeny bit over the speed limit?!?”

          “The speed limit was sixty miles per hour, Ruby. You were going one hundred and ten. I’ll drive.”

“Hmph. I can still run faster than that with just a fraction of my semblance.” Ruby said petulantly and stuffed some cereal into her mouth.

          “Ruby, you can _literally_ move faster than human or faunus eyes can register. You can actually flash-step like a fucking anime character.” Blake sighed.

          “Exactly! I totally had the car under control!”

          “That doesn't make it less illegal.”

          “Bah!” Ruby said and stuffed the last of her yogurt cereal into her mouth. “Fine, you can drive. I'll be out in a few.”

          “She has a point. The police around here never show up when anything big is going down. I didn’t see any of them around when Beacon fell either.” She said offhandedly to Saffron a moment after Ruby left. “I’ve gotta go get dressed too. Think about what kind of clothes you want while you wait; the mall here has entirely too many options.”

          Blake finished quickly and followed Ruby to get changed as well. She pulled out something that was very similar to what she wore back at Beacon, but changed her mind and pulled on her regular black blouse and white waistcoat. As she shifted aside her clothes looking for her usual white trousers, she caught a glimpse of the intense neon colored present that Yang and Ruby had gotten her a couple years ago and shuddered. She found and pulled on the trousers . Her black boots were down by the garage door with the rest of the shoes.

          Ruby somehow beat her to the garage door and was helping Saffron into the back of Ladybug. It was a squarish four doored car with a long engine bay. Even though Blake knew that beneath that hood was some of the most advanced technology in motor vehicles it still looked like it belonged in some Vacuon road warrior movie.

          Ruby really had a thing for muscle vehicles, Blake thought as she passed the three motorcycles, Bumblebee, BumbleBlake (That was the last time she let Yang come up with a name for something. The two motorcycles were just two years of models apart and looked basically the same.) and Ruby's chopper, the Crimson Wasp. Weiss still didn't have a driver's license or they would have peer pressured her into getting a bike as well long ago.

          Ladybug stuck to Ruby’s usual color scheme but oddly her personal insignia had never wound up anywhere visible on the vehicle. It was just as well, outside the motorcycles it was the only vehicle in the RWBY house.

          The inside of the car was luxurious. Plush leather, beautiful paneling. She sank into the driver's seat and sighed at the comfort. “How much was this car again, Ru?”

          “It cost nothing but my dignity! I did a brand deal with the company right after the war. War hero and all that.”

          “Oh right. Im pretty sure this thing would cost more than Weiss could afford.”

          Ruby mumbled something about modifications and “cowardly engineering” as they pulled out of the driveway. It took a moment but soon they were rushing towards town, the engines purr barely made a sound. It was an Atlesian design outside whatever had been done to it, and it smoothly drove the car through the wide suburban streets.

          “Do you ever think about old battles?” Ruby asked suddenly.

          “Yeah, sometimes I guess, why?”

          “I was just thinking, that first fight with Roman and his goons. That little brawl that started all of this. I went out of my way not to hurt those guys, ya know. I avoided hurting people for a long time.”

          “Yeah...” Blake wondered where this was going.

          “I would have killed them if it had been more recently. Without a second thought. With hardly a first most likely. It would just be _Enemy: Kill_ and that would be that.” Ruby sighed. “Did I lose something somewhere?”

          Blake glanced between the road and the deflated woman beside her trying to figure out what to say, anything to cheer up the huntress. It was hard because the faunus _understood_. She thought she had lost something when the Fang got violent, and then found it again at Beacon, just to have it stolen away again in the war. Since then she felt like she had picked up little pieces of herself and began putting them back together.  She wasn’t whole again yet, but she was close. She found it more than a little disturbing that Ruby had similar thoughts swirling around in her head. The shorter woman had always seemed to be doing exactly what she wanted to do in life. Usually she was so vibrant and colorful.

          “I think as we age we all lose parts of ourselves while finding others. The war probably took more than it gave...” Blake said carefully.

          Ruby just hummed in response. After a few minutes of quiet driving, Ruby’s scroll began ringing violently. She glanced at it and grimaced. “Yeah I'm not looking forward to this.” She glanced at Blake, “Jaune.”

          “Hello!” She said cheerily into the scroll, scooting back up into a sitting position. She flicked it onto speaker scroll.

          “-by, you wouldn’t happen to be a certain mysterious huntress would you?” Jaune started up with an accusatory tone.

          “Well I'm a huntress and I like to think I'm pretty mysterious...” she said vaguely.

          “You’re suicidal is what you are. Where have you been for the last week?”

          “I, ah, I was on a hunt actually.”

          “What were you hunting?”

          “I was hunting a… uh… A King Taiketsu actually.” Ruby said with a hint of vagueness.

          “Mhm...” Jaune apparently knew his friend well enough to see right through that.

          “Aaaand there was a Nuckelavee at one point...” Ruby mumbled.

          “What!?!” It sounded like the entirety of team JNR yelled at the phone then.

          “I won!” Ruby interjected “They are both dead!”

          “Your arm didn't win.” Blake said loudly enough she was sure JNR could hear it. Ruby shot her a withering look.

          “How… You have to stop doing this, Ruby. You are going to get yourself killed.” Jaune sighed.

          There are a few pregnant moments where Ruby silently looked out the window. Sadness coated her voice as she continued.

          “Yeah. Hey, do… do you guys still need a fourth?”

          “I, of course Ruby, we’d love to have RNJR back in action. Does this mean you are done with solo hunting?”

          “Yeah. For a while at least. Hey, we can talk more later, we just got to the mall.” Ruby said, shaking Blake from her attentive eavesdropping. She was right, the parking lot was their next exit.

          “Alright. See you soon, Ruby.”

          “Yeah, bye Jaune, bye Nora, bye Ren.” Ruby shut off the scroll and sank into her seat. Blake thought she looked very lost in that moment.

          The mall was a fairly grand affair,  like most of Vales commerce it was given over to the primary purpose of personal expression. Blake swore that a full half of the shops sold clothing, not that she ever bothered to count. The rest were a satisfying assortment of things, from arts and crafts shops to the little mechanics store Ruby and Yang went to for prosthetic parts and the little coffeeshop that Weiss would obstinately park in for most of their shopping trips.

          Weiss seemed like the type to enjoy this sort of thing, but apparently some habits died hard. She refused utterly to get clothes from anyone but her personal tailor. The only time she would really ever shop with them was their occasional trips to stock up on dust, apparently she mostly used her semblance for party tricks now. Ruby always got a weird expression when they talked about that.

          “So kid, anything you like? Like, frills or colors or...” Ruby looked at Blake, who stood on the other side of the young boy, looking thoughtfully about the promenade. “Blake… what do people wear?”

          “What on remnant do you mean?”

          “I have three types of clothing blake. Sweatpants, my hunter gear, and my combat skirts. Like. are there pants for peopling?”

          “He can pick his own clothes Ru, he's old enough.”

          “Oh thank dust.” Ruby sighed. “Im off to the mechanics shop to pick up my order, Where should we meet up?”

          “Food court. When did you have time to place an order?” the faunus asked.

          “On the ride back from the outskirts.” The huntress said offhandedly as she walked off into the crowd, leaving the two faunus behind.

          “Well, I guess we better go get you some clothes huh Saff? I guess… we can just wander around until you can point at things you like?”

So they did. After two hours of wandering about the titanically sized mall Saffron had picked out enough clothing that she felt good enough to call it a day. She had changed him into some at the very first opportunity too, she felt awful about him wearing the same set of clothes every day for the better part of a week. Before she knew it he had picked out surprisingly normal looking clothing, including a variety of colors. She wondered if the Mistrali culture lacked the traditional Vale color palette and/or familial palette from Menagerie. She took a mental note to ask him about that later.

When they finally met back up with Ruby the cyborg was pulling on a pair of carts that were loaded down with all manner of steel and wires.

          “Did you find what you were looking for?” Blake said, eyeing the carts suspiciously from her spot at the far side of the small table. The food court sat in the center of the mall, in a massive square that was open to the sky. It had small garden sections and an abundance of small tables like the one she and Saffron were seated at.

          “Yeah. wound up grabbing some scrap for, ya know. Stuff.”

          “Because you like having an over abundance of metal?”

          The conversation went on like that for a little while. Pleasant, but quietly turning to silence as a small atlesian drone delivered the food they ordered off of their scrolls. After a bit, a small, quiet voice, raw from disuse, whispered a “Thank you.” into the air.

          Both of them were startled for a moment. Blake managed to connect the dots first and looked at Saffron, who had buried his head into his burger. _Vegan._ Blake briefly had thought, upon catching its scent.

          “... You are welcome.” she said after a moment, at which Ruby vigorously nodded, despite the confusion painted on her features. They decided silently to let it go, not wanting to overload the poor child. After their meal they simply returned home uneventfully.

          That night Ruby actually managed to sleep in her own bed, in her own red, satin covered room. It was dark and warm, and much of the space was covered by billowing bolts of satin and silk in crimson red. As Ruby laid down to sleep she quietly considered what was on those walls, behind that cloth. Perhaps one day she would deal with that, but today was not that day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of this series is technically a prequel, so read that at will. Its also worth mentioning that quality of this fic improves (I hope) and i intend to rewrite a good chunk of it before too long. Thank you for reading and commenting!


	2. Chapter 2

                       Ruby Rose stood amongst an endless plain of blood. It lapped warmly against her bare feet. It smelled ( _glorious_ ) horrible, fresh, brutal. The gentle current bobbed some mass to her, gently it bumped against her like a small log flowing down a river. She looked down at it. It was familiar. Once it graced her left shoulder, which now had only a gaping wound. Her own severed arm was drifting through the river of blood.

                        She looked away, trying to focus on anything else. Her heart didn't beat like it used to. Before- anything but that. Focus on the arm again. No. the crowd. A crowd stood before her, gazing at her passively. Pyrrha stood at the forefront. Penny behind her. Qrow and Ozpin stood there as well. Raven. Tai Yang. and behind them stood her communications officer, Enri Atnegam. Further beyond them stood eight people seared eternally into her mind though she had no names to place with their faces. She had almost made it to them. Almost. Behind them stood the fallen students she had only seen in hallways, behind them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were crowded looking on. Faceless. Forever lost.

                        All of them she could have saved. If she were faster. Stronger. Better.

                        “You could be you know. You stole it from me, that gift.” Salem gently caressed her left breast, tracing her fingers up to the black bruise that sat eternally above her heart, tendrils of it reaching up to her face and towards her gaping wound. Rubys heart continued beating out its slow taboo.

                        “I never asked for this. This is a curse, not a gift.” Ruby rasped, unsure of her own words.

                        They were now alone. The blood had receded and they stood atop beacon, looking down on Vale. Twilight spilt ashen hues across the war torn tableau of Vale. she could see grimm patrolling the streets, sometimes daring just a bit too close to the barricaded streets and being cut down with hails of gunfire. She could see a paladin being torn apart by a pack of beowolves. Some white fang were backing some civilians into a corner. The fang members blood called out to her, begging to be spilled onto the uncaring pavement.

                        “One day you will have to make a choice you young fool. Whether you embrace your stolen legacy, or fail someone else. You know it. You can feel it in every beat of the heart I gave you. You were supposed to be my champion you know. With a little brainwashing I could have absolutely won that war. There would never have been a monster quite like you.” Salem walked behind the shorter woman and embraced her, the dark queen's breath was hot and humid on Ruby's ear. “If you embraced it you could have that power now, and keep your sanity. You could let the streets run hot with blood, and you could finally just give in to that urge that drives you. That's always driven you.”

                        Ruby inhaled sharply and bit down on her lip. Her remaining hand twitched around a phantom weapon. Ruby remembered. During the war, when the sting of bullet and blade tore at her and she embraced it. Before she had this awful strength, before the silver aura had overtaken her own, back when she could charge into battle and lose herself in it. She remembered cutting a line of soldiers in half with her scythe, she remembered her final confrontation with Tyrian, she remembered the heat and pleasure of every blow she reigned on his face, and the satisfaction of seeing the bloody nigh unrecognizable pulp.

                        She remembered that glorious ripping pulling _pain_ of her arm being torn out of its socket, an exquisite pain beyond anything she had known, bar one occurrence that happened only minutes before.

                        But that was just the problem wasn't it. She snapped out of her reverie, pulling her hand away from her body and bursting free of the Salem phantoms groping hands. She couldn't fall into that bloodlust again. She might take it too far this time. Before she was lucky that she had grown tired before an innocent or an ally crossed her path, but there just weren't enough enemies anymore. Even on a hunt she held back. She just didn't know if she could turn her blade when her mind was clouded in that carnal haze.

                        But nothing she hunted ever thrilled her anymore.

 

                        The simple alarm clock shrieked, forcing Ruby to open her eyes and grope about for the blasted thing. She laid back down after unceremoniously bopping the snooze button and thoughtfully gazed at the ceiling. She quietly traced a finger around the blackened flesh above her heart. She couldn't remember what happened, or what it was, or how it had gotten there. The doctors said it wasn't actively killing her or increasing in size, so that was good.

                        Eventually she made it to the bathroom and found herself looking thoughtfully at her own reflection. The scars that painted her body still sent a little shiver of pride through her. The steel that made up her left arm socket and poked its way through her skin in a couple of other areas shone brightly under the warm light of the bathroom lamps.

            She sighed and went about her morning routine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruby loves- Strawberries!
> 
> Ruby loves- Her friends!
> 
> Ruby loves- VIOLENCE!


	3. Chapter 3

 

_ Years in the past, but not many. _

 

Salem’s castle was a cruel imitation of Beacon Tower that sat fiercely in the midst of the shattered grimm-lands. The scenery was painted a bleak purple by the monstrous atmosphere, its true colors impossible to know. The acrid smell of grimm permeated the land. Smoke billowed from the very top of the tower. A bullhead was mangled into the side of tower atrium. 

The inside was a similar parody, the gears and beautiful clockworks and natural colors all replaced with ugly pools of tar and black and purple colors, the theme broken only by a large wall of ice near the ruined transport behind which Blake, Yang, and Weiss were taking cover from Cinder who, between dodging Weiss’s summoned Knight and tossing fireballs, was hissing from the lingering pain of the first few bullets that caught her with her fireshield down, the stolen nature of her maiden powers having stolen her aura from her.. 

Weiss had already sustained a series of burns from cinder while she was protecting her allies, who had been caught in the bullhead when it crashed. They were lucky to get out with only flesh wounds.

Watts came to join Salem on a raised dais to watch the brawl, abandoning the flak cannon mounted on the top of the tower. Salem’s pet mega grimm was curled behind the dais, a massive quadruped that was essentially a supercharged Beowulf, watching but not participating on Salem's orders. There were however a multitude of smaller grimm that Blake and Yang were chewing through with the once mounted machine guns from the bullhead.

Cinder growled and blasted the floor beneath Weiss’s knight, tripping the titanic warrior, giving her a moment of relief. The three hiding behind the ice wall timidly looked around it and were greeted by a hot and humid wind. Cinder was building up a massive fireball, an angry sneer painted across her ruined face.

“NOW DIE!” She screamed, her voice coming out like a violin bow being pulled across sand paper. She drew her arms back, preparing to throw the massive fireball, a shield of heat blocking all the bullets from the invaders, and then- a familiar rifle report splattered her skull towards them and the fireball exploded then and there, incinerating the headless corpse. 

The elevator had opened. In front of it stood a figure whose tattered clothing was mostly made up of bloody bandages and rags. She was barefoot, revealing sore dirty feet. Her hair was seemingly tipped with red, though all who knew her could tell it was just the natural red of her hair catching the light. In one shaking hand she held a smoking rifle, the silver of her eye could be seen just barely through the scope. She stumbled forward, catching herself by flourishing her rifle into its scythe form and planting its butt in the ground.

“Our erstwhile gladiator has decided to come fight with her friends hm.” Salem scoffed, the barest hint of rage seething in her voice. “Go, my pet”

Ruby glanced over at the massive beast, passively at first, and then her eyes widened in fear for a split second before she grit her teeth and readied her scythe. The tower shook as the beast pounced into the floor in front of her. Ruby held her scythe as a guard behind her and tried to run, but she apparently couldn't move at anything even vaguely close to her normal speed. The beast swung its massive paw, almost double the woman's own size, and hit her hard from behind. She flew across the room and smashed into the wall. 

Weiss immediately broke cover and sprinted for her friend.  _ Her aura didn’t flash.  _ Weiss thought and wondered if the others noticed it as well. Ruby was incredibly tough, but that was a hard hit followed by a hard landing. That would kill most people without Aura, which Ruby was certainly empty of. The massive white knight was back on his feet, swinging at the colossal grimm, Yang and Blake had abandoned their temporary armaments to charge with Gambol Shroud and Ember Celica firing a merciless cascade of dust rounds.

But it was all for naught. Ruby had performed a three point landing and staggered to her feet. She leveled her scythe at the beast and fired at it while it charged at her. The second her clip was empty she turned to the side and fell into a fighting stance.

The beast bit at her. She swung. Its teeth closed around her left elbow, ruining her movement. In a series quick flicks of its head, seconds before the knights blade cut, the bullets hit, and the beast turned to face its true opponents, Ruby was swung left, flicked right and then yanked left and up. Weiss felt like she could hear a sickening splortch sound as Ruby was flung into the rafters, Crescent Rose in her right hand, her other arm remained bloodied in the maw of the beast, spurting blood.

Yang screamed wordlessly, erupting into flames. The beast was hardly outside of their comfort zone, though they had never fought worse they had fought groups of grimm nearly as powerful. Yang distracted it, dodging around it and kicking it and punching it. Blake waited for Weiss to order her knight into position and use her dust magic to slick the floor with ice and used gambol shroud as a tripwire, embedding it in one of the steel window supports to trip the beast, making it vulnerable for a finishing blow courtesy of the massive white knight.

Unfortunately for them, the moment its blade was fully inside the beast its own head was nearly blown off. Watts had stepped into the battle and was leveling an ornate quad barrel shotgun at them. One barrel was smoking from the critical shot on the knight. Yang just sprinted at him in a rage, her flames slagging parts of the floor. Her aura caught the full brunt of the other three barrels, nearly depleting it but also pumping power into her kinetic battery. Her punch shattered his aura and launched him through the glass and fully out of the tower.

Salem stood alone in the room for a moment, looking down at the three warrior women. “Well. You've killed all my lieutenants I see. That silver eyed beast you call a leader pulverized poor Tyrian when she was captured. You three have killed Watts and Cinder’s little cabal. Then Ruby herself executed Cinder. My new grimm was slain and you've invaded the very heart of my kingdom.” She drew a black dagger in her right hand and stretched them out as if to embrace the whole of the sky. “But I've a code of honor to keep, and miles yet to go before I sleep. I won't go down easily.”

At her word small grimm of all types began pouring into the room. Through the broken windows. Through the elevator shafts which the grimm had torn open. It was chaos. Weiss was running out of dust. Blake was running out of patience. Yang was running out of aura. 

Salem cried out in pain, drawing the triad’s attention. She had pirouetted to face away from them, showing off the huge cut that had been sliced from the top of her shoulder to her hip. Grimm ichor wept from the slit, contrasting the paleness of her starch white skin. Across from her stood Ruby Rose. Her bandages shifted to cover her new stump of an arm, her right hand holding Crescent Rose in war scythe mode, her pale legs shaking, but her eyes determined.

“Fuck yes!” Yang shouted, seemingly rejuvenated by Ruby's return. “Fuck her up, Ru!”

Weiss seemed more calm after seeing the reappearance of her ex-leader while she continued trying to summon a new spectre.

Blake just smiled and continued her fighting, her careful patience returning to each of her strikes.

Salem and Ruby, both in incredible pain began to circle each other. Their eyes were locked in battle as much as anyone else in the room was. Salem chuckled, lowly and angrily. “I was worried you might finally be dead, Ruby Rose.”

“If only the world were so kind.” Ruby coughed out. “Either way this ends is fine with me.”

“What, aren't you afraid of death, Ruby Rose?” Salem coughed as well, a tiny trail of ichor forming at the side of her lip.

“No. I'm ready for it. I’ve nothing left after this fight. I'll be dead, or the war will end. Either way is fine with me. If I'm dead I'll have died fighting. If I live, I don't know. I guess I'll hunt. I’ll hunt whatever monsters are left in the world, until either none remain or I fall.” Ruby stabbed out with each word, her scythe slowed by her tremendous injury. The pair of them were painting a bloody circle of black and red.

“Hah. I was like you once, I think. Prepared for death. Ready to take the warrior's way out. The world had given me nothing, and I had given the world everything. I think you and I, we are a lot alike.”

Ruby narrowed her eyes and deflected a strike from the Grimm Queen on her scythes staff. “I guess we are.”

Salem was surprised at that, her guard lowered enough for the scythe blade to draw blood along her thigh, which she returned in kind by slicing at the huntresses forearm. “Heh, isn’t the hero supposed to deny that kind of thing?”

“I'm no hero. I'm a weapon. Besides. We are both right here, right now, fighting to the death. We could have given up long ago, you far longer than I, but we didn’t. At least you have a clear purpose.” Ruby hissed in pain as the two of them danced past each other through the center of the bloody circle and Salem's dagger scraped against her left ribcage.

“What, you lack a purpose then? I could give you purpose.” The ebb and flow of the battle below the dais distracted both of them for a split second, though neither were especially concerned.

“I fight… to protect my friends.” Ruby declared, though some hesitation tinted her voice, planting her scythe just outside the circle. Her arm was too tired to hold it any longer. Her hand was already raw and bloody, and her shoulder which had been dislocated only earlier that day was utterly aflame with agony. 

“I once did as well. But I can see you've already realized what ultimately put me on this path. Perhaps you really are better than me in every way.”

“What do you mean?” Ruby asked hoarsely as she caught Salem's wrist before she could impale Ruby’s liver, though it was a feint and Salem just decked her in the face with a  hard left hook instead.

“Eventually friends leave. Eventually everything fades. So people like us are just left wondering what there is in life. But you are better than I. A better fighter. A better person. A better inheritor.” They closed once more and Ruby used one of the few weapons left at her disposal. The moment Salem started ducking closer to her, she headbutted the older woman square on the nose, sending her reeling.

“Perhaps. I thought so, for a while. But the friends who left me came back. The ones who were taken cannot. I still think about them a lot, Pyrrha. and Penny. I-” Ruby coughed up a bit of blood. “- never told her or anyone. Pyrrha. But I was planning to ask her out after graduation day. I thought… she loved fighting. I loved fighting. Everyone else had a purpose.” Ruby choked out, nearly crying from the pain, both emotional and physical while Salem listened intently, between striking and parrying. ”But we were there for the fight. And then I watched her die in front of me. I still flinch when I hear the stupid twang of a bow sometimes.” She finished in a far smaller voice than she had began, barely breaking a ragged whisper.

“Did you ever find love again?” Salem asked with a tone that Ruby tried to believe was mocking.

Moments later, Ruby saw her chance. She had just circled back to her scythe, still in war form. Salems guard was just a bit too low. She hated herself for seeing this. The pale, bloody, raw fist clenched around Crescent Rose. with her very last ounce of strength ruby tore it from the ground and stabbed with all her remaining life force, impaling Salem. “Only physically.”

Salem did not fall, however, and Ruby's momentum carried her forward until she was practically on top of the dark empress. Their faces inches apart Ruby could see the pain in the older womans eyes. But something else glimmered there as well. 

“Truly impressive, Ruby Rose. But I'll have you know, should my line end today-” the crimson huntress felt white hot pain as Salem's dagger slid into her, just beneath her navel. “- So will yours.”

Even as the life slipped from Salem's red irises Ruby could feel it. That little shifts at the edges of her mind as consciousness slipped away from her. The two fell together into the center of the circle. Ruby rolled off her and into the slurry more from momentum than any conscious intent. As her vision blurred she thought for sure that she could see three colors take over her world. White. Yellow. Black.So much Black. 

The three combatants beneath the platform sighed as the grimm horde finally subsided. Their moment of celebration was ruined immediately by a dull thud. They all looked to where Ruby had been fighting Salem moments before. They sprinted to their friend who was sprawled on the floor.

Yang slid the last two feet on her knees to Ruby’s side, and reached out to her, stopping just sort of touching her when she realized the shorter woman was giggling uncontrollably, and occasionally gurgling through the blood puddles she was face down in.

“Ruby?” Yang asked, worried.

“They are all dead. Every last one of them.” Ruby giggled out.

“Yeah, Ru! We did it! We won!” Her sister said, voice full of happiness and victory.

Blake and Weiss had arrived, weiss elbowing in by yang and Blake moving around the other side. The faunas pushed Salem's corpse away, checking briefly to make sure it wasnt breathing, before kneeling down next to the crimson huntress.

Ruby just giggled and giggled.

 

An hour passed, and time found them slowly making their way down the tower to the nearest point that a bull head could land. A battlefield where just a few days before Ruby had joined an Atlas strike team in addition to four other hunters in an attempt to assassinate the dark queen.

The shadows set against the ruble were deep, concealing grimm from all but the silver gaze of a nearly dead huntress. They watched and waited, dutifully obeying the final commands of the erstwhile queen. They watched four beleaguered hunters, Red being all but carried by Black, while White and Yellow flanked them. Their red eyes met Silver over and over again, though a truce had been struck, and neither moved to strike. 

They watched a great machine descend from the sky, a Rabbit snapping photos from its womb and a great golden gun poised to cut down all challengers, though none arose. The grimm tasted worry and the barest hints of fear lingering on the wind, but the bitter taste of happiness drifted far stronger. An incredibly dense feeling of loss weighed down on the grimm, and they drank in the silvery emotion but remained hidden. 

They watched as death rode away on the wind, and soon picked up the source of the fear. It was masked by the incredibly strong souls that had previously been the sole thing the grimm could see, but now they had found something new.

Watts, cowered in fear as a horde of grimm descended on him. Then nothing alive remained in the grimm lands but the grimm themselves.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this format better or somehow worse?


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, Ru.” Blake greeted the huntress as she entered the kitchen. “We need to talk.”

Ruby nodded. She looked tired, Blake thought.  _ She must have gotten up really early since she came from the workshop. _ The mechanical arm was hanging limply at her side. All of its armor had been removed and the underlying structure had been fully repaired. The arm itself looked nearly done, although there were no wires at all, and the forearm had been hollowed out. Blake wondered why she had the arm attached instead of the temporary work one.

As Ruby got herself some coffee, pouring an incredible amount of sugar and creamer into the cup, Blake asked her about it. She said that she was done and just had to slot everything in together, which meant she needed to have it connected to her nervous system and aura. Blake asked her how that would feel. Like her entire nervous system was literally being set on fire, was Ruby's answer. Yang's didn't hurt because it was for the most part a civilian model, it was as strong and durable as any human arm. Ruby’s arm was basically a weapon, and would be even more so after this suite of upgrades. Far more durable. Far stronger. But much heavier and far more painful because it tapped into her actual body rather than just her aura.

By then they had finished putting together a little snack and sat down at the table.

“So. Yesterday morning I saw an interesting news story.”

“Mhm.” Ruby said around a mouthful of strawberries.

“Senator Enrique of Mistral has a son named Saffron who went missing last week during an attack on the embassy.” The faunas said conversationally.

Ruby swallowed. Ruby looked at Blake. Blake looked back. Ruby buried her head in her hands with a resounding facepalm. “ _ Damn it, Yang. _ ” She whispered.  She sighed and went back to her normal volume. “So I assume still no word from Yang?” Blake shook her head. I’ll try and get in touch with my friends in the agency, see if I can get anything.”

“How bad do you think this is gonna be, Ru?” Blake asked. She had her own ideas of course, and none of them were particularly positive.

“Well... Best case scenario this is all a big misunderstanding. Worst case, Yang is now part of an international case of terrorism possibly involving the Vale military and we are about to fight another stupid war.” Blake nodded along. Ruby words basically mirrored her own thoughts, although Blake had considered his faunas heritage more closely. Nothing about this was going to be good.

They sat in silent contemplation for a few minutes before Ruby took her leave and returned to the basement. Blake Retrieved her laptop and began working on some office work, sending out apologetic emails, trying to contact the Vale security council about the various recurring threats, and writing up a column for the Vale times. 

 

\--

 

“Excuse me.” The young boy said in the tiny, quiet voice he had at last begun to use and pulled on the elbow of Blake's coat, drawing her attention away from the newscast transcripts she was reading on her scroll.

“Hey, need something?” He was wearing a little orange cloak, she realized with a little surprise. Ruby must have made it for him at some point since the mall trip. She wasn't particularly inclined to make clothes usually, much preferring working with metal. Some of the things she made in that workshop were sins against sanity. 

“I wanted to ask Ruby something.” He mumbled.

She jerked her thumb in the general direction of the basement door. ”She’s down there. If she offers to let you test something, dont. She doesn't realize that some people aren’t able to take an anti tank shell to the chest. She built this, this gun? That explodes when it's working  _ correctly. _ ” The Lochnagar was a sin to all reason.

He nodded, a hint of fear in his eye, and left. Good. Everyone should have a healthy dose of fear in there.

Saffron stepped lightly through the door and down the dangerously steep stairs. There were marks on the walls of the stairwell that told him it was most likely quite rare that the stairs ever actually saw use, at least not by the huntress herself. 

He stepped on to the hard concrete floor of the surprisingly large, and excessively cluttered basement. There were racks of parts and metal and fully and partially built weapons, some were completely unrecognizable as anything, perhaps their existence was merely a testament to the creator's will to create.

The two times Blake had opened this door to call the raven-red headed woman up to eat the workshop had been a cacophony of machinery whirring and smithing. Now it was utterly quiet, save for the gentle hum of the lights.

He stepped carefully through the chaotic workplace towards the sole denizen of the basement. She was hunched over a little desk, an arm lamp pointing at the flat table. Her mechanical hand was holding her pencil, utterly still. Her other hand supported her head. Occasionally as he approached he could see small spasms shake the high necked work shirt she was wearing. He noted that her left shoulder had a series of inhumanly angled bumps popping out along her back, across where her shoulder blade should have been and leading up her spine.

He finally made his way over to her and peered across the table. All he could see at this acute angle were some draft schematics. Two obviously separate ones. Each though, was vaguely the shape of a human, one quite tall and the other fairly short.

The last thing he noticed before getting the woman's attention was the series of small grey splotches of water on the paper. Ruby rubbed her hand across her eyes before turning to him. “Hey kid.” she rasped.

“I… Are you okay?” he whispered as loudly as he could muster.

Rather than her usual grinning assurance she just nodded. She scooted her chair out a bit, casually pulling some schematics for a potential crescent rose upgrade over the robot designs. He noticed that these were drawn with far less artistry. 

“Uhm. I. I have a scar, from, from where i was uh, kidnapped a few years ago. On my hip. And. You have a lot of scars. I. It. I. Do… do any of them hurt sometimes?” he finally stuttered out.

She looked at him thoughtfully for quite a bit. Her silver eyes shifted between being vacant and incredibly aware. Her right hand found itself gently touching where her heart was before she made up her mind. “No, no none of them hurt. But.” 

She pulled her phone out, flicked it a few times, and pointed it at him, so he could see the screen clearly. It was a landscape picture of four people, Ruby and Blake he recognized immediately, then Yang, his kidnapper. One more, a woman in white he did not recognize, was smiling alongside the rest. Ruby pointed at her first, a long scar ran over her eye. Next she pointed to Yellows arm, or rather, the steel capped stump of it. Next she pointed to Blake's ear, where a wedge had been cut.

“Those. Those are the scars that hurt me.” She gestured to herself and said “These are practically my hunters pride.”

“But didn't they hurt?” He asked, not understanding.

“Hm. Perhaps. I.. I think there are some people. People like me. Like Nora. Like Yatsu and Fox. Like… Like… Like Pyrrha.” Her voice caught a bit on that last name. “There are some people who dont hurt like the rest. Every cut and wound, we don't feel it like it's an injury. It's a testament. It's a wound we endured so someone else didn't have to.”

She sighed and settled back into her seat, looking up at the ceiling. “We don't have to grit our teeth and bear the pain, because our mouths are open wide grinning and laughing. We are more than warriors. We are weapons ourselves. Far more dangerous than any bullet or blade.”

They were quiet for a time, Saffron mulled something over in his mind and Ruby was just as lost in thought.

“Do you kill people miss Rose?” He finally asked.

She was quiet for a moment. She seemed to require a moment to think of a proper answer. “Yes. Bandits, mostly. Awful people. Now. but during the war… I try to stick to grimm. That way when i feel good and victorious I can pretend its because I just defeated a monster. Have you seen anyone die, Saff?” She asked out of nowhere, catching him way off guard.

“Yes.” he answered in an incredibly small voice.

She leaned down and drew him into her warm and thickly muscled arms. Arm. cool steel somehow was just as comforting right then. “I was young too. When i first saw someone die. I was just a few years older than you when I first killed someone too. I never told anyone. It was just after i started my training as a hunter proper. I saw a mugging happen. I used to have these two hatchets, i was awful with them, but, I told him to stop. And he laughed in my face, and the victim looked more scared and it just made me so mad.”

She didn't continue after that. She didn't really need to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh that's weird, I cant find the plot anywhere... Hope its not one of those breather chapter type things, although nothing particularly intense has happened yet...


	5. Chapter 5

 

            The following days were quiet. The three of them whiled away the time working on projects, watching television, and playing games. After a trip to the shooting range and a firm reminder that, yes, Ruby was still banned but the other two could enter it really was incredibly peaceful. Soon Ruby was preparing for her hunt and Blake was back off to the FRF. Saffron was allowed far more freedom than was most likely safe, although he mostly kept indoors, being a shy child. Soon enough Ruby found herself on a bullhead flying out to the mountains.

  
            This hunt was bound to be interesting. The original hunt had only been for a pack of beowolves, small fry. Ruby would have only involved herself had there been not a single other hunt available. But. It hadn't seemed like a normal hunt.

            What had caught her eye, on the long ride back from the border, was the fact that a two hunter team went out to kill the pack and had disappeared. The last reported hunter death from a beowolf pack was back during the war, when Salem released that pack of supercharged monster beowolves. Admittedly they had been pretty metal.           

            So this hunt was going to be interesting. Which was... odd for her. It had been so long since she had hunted out of interest. She supposed on some level that her last hunt had truly broken her spirit. She had finally been forced to give up on her search for an honorable death. A King Taiketsu. An Elder Nuckelavee. And twelve bandits armed with atlas anti specialist weapons that they had scavenged and looking for revenge. Yet she lived. That had been the story of her life. Maybe she should write an autobiography. “ _Yet She Lived: The Story of the most Badass Huntress Ever. Evvvveeeeerrr._ ”

            Would it be weird to add a second pair of dots? Followed by “ _The Story of Ruby Rose_ ”. No that would be the, “story of” twice which sounds dumb.  

            She realized that she had mentally digressed. Ruby had a sneaking suspicion that it might be more than just giving up on her release. She had realized over the weekend that perhaps she had been selfish. For years. After the war she had felt like a spent shell. Like she had been used. Her purpose fulfilled. A lock put on the one thing in life she was truly passionate about. But... maybe she could find something new. A new purpose. Even if it was just to build weapons. And be with Blake. Maybe find whoever was sending those bomb threats and inform them of how rude they were being. In great detail. And incredible violence. And be with Blake.

            Maybe after this hunt, and before officially hooking up with RNJR again, she could take a month or so off and hang with Saff and Blake. Maybe just do some guard work for Blake's friends, they probably needed it. Maybe do some sightseeing. It could be a good time. Hopefully this last solo hunt would be fun.

            It's not like every hunt was bound to be life changing.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im going to go through and fix as much of the grammer as i can, and fix a couple small continuity goofs i made. Then ill get back to hopefully a pretty long chapter, relative to previous ones at least.


	6. Chapter 6

               Weiss hated… Wednesdays. No. Weiss hated most days, being cruel to Wednesday was unfair to the rest, which surely deserved her wrath in equal measure. Honestly the only thing worse than the days of the week were the tiles of this stupid luxury hotel. She hated these trips more and more each year. No each trip. She never thought being the head of the SDC was going to be easy, but she didn’t think it was going to be boring either. Turns out it was possible for her to be wrong.

               Her one solace was that the end of this trip would mark the beginning of a six-month period where she could finally go _home_. Finally see the few friends she had face to face. Ruby, Blake, Yang if she was lucky.  Weiss didn’t have many friends. Was Lucy her friend? She had known her implacable assistant for five years, but she was still her employee…

               Weiss glanced at the door that separated the two rooms. In five minutes, she would walk starkly in to wake up her boss and help her prepare for the day. A long hellish day of meetings. As she went through her checklist of meetings in her head she compiled her outfit. She was going to look intimidating today. She was pissed, her resting bitch face would be applied in its full menacing state of general displeasure.

               She found herself lost in a fantasy of her being able to glare at the pissants and getting her way immediately so that five minutes later she was startled by her assistant.

               “Good morning miss Schnee. Your first meeting is in an hour, but the car will take half an hour of transit, so we need to get prepared in the next fifteen minutes.” The azure haired woman said curtly, which Weiss had learned meant she was being friendly. Lucy… Lucy made kid Weiss look like a social butterfly.

               “Good morning to you too…” she grumbled, rolling over. She pushed herself up so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed, knees just over the side.

               “Shall we use the wheelchair miss Schnee?”

               God, she wanted too. “No. Bring me the full package set. I’m going to… remind them who I am today.”

               Dutifully Lucy brought the two pieces of machinery over to her. They were finely crafted, silvery polished steel that gave the impression of a knight’s armor. These were set apart from the other pair by their nature. They couldn’t be hidden with shoes, and they weren’t meant to be. They were designed to look like full set of (admittedly elegant and curvaceous) combat boots. These were the refined versions of the prosthetics she had received just a month before the war ended.

               She lined up the first with the slots on her leg, sliding the bracers into place and humming when they gave a satisfying click. Then she hesitated. She hated this part, so much. She at times legitimately envied yang, which was heinously inappropriate, but still. She supposed she was lucky to still be able to walk, and on some of her (and Ruby’s) greatest feats of engineering, but putting on the damn things was painful as hell. She had no idea how her former partner did it every day, especially since that arm had a hell of a lot more nerve bundles in it than her legs did.

               “Miss Schnee?” Lucy prodded.

               Wordlessly she clenched her teeth and yanked the bolt into place. Her entire leg felt like it was literally on fire. The pain melted through her leg like ice, eventually centering on and disappearing in the thin joint that was her “knee cap.”

               And then she repeated the process.

               Ten minutes later found Weiss and Lucy standing in front of their hotel, Weiss in a somewhat frilly yet still perfectly intimidating version of her old ensemble that looked like it had gone through the was with a pair of business suits. It was gaudy, violent, and refined, in other words.

               And most importantly it left her steely calves on full display.

                When she was halfway into the limousine she paused, and stood back up to look and her assistant. “Lucy… are we friends?”

               She looked confused for a moment, then she appeared to consider her bosses words for a moment before answering.

               “I… think so? I don’t really know what constitutes a friendship.”

               Weiss nodded and got in the car. She gave a little wave as she drove away. For some reason, she felt a bit more relaxed as she drove towards a day of boredom and stubborn bureaucracy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, its Weiss. maybe in a couple more chapters Yang will show up, and then we'll have the whole crew. of course once Yangs back in the mix it will be what im tentatively calling act 2, so, mixed blessings i suppose.
> 
> Im getting back to writing the next bit of the main story, but i lost a chapter worth of work and that was a bit demoralizing so re writing that has been a slogfest. its happening just slowly. and hey, its a totally happy chapter with no hint of darkness, so its all fun times for a while!
> 
> Sorry this one is so short, i just wanted to get this scene up and it didnt really fit into another chapter in a way i liked.
> 
> I accidently uploaded this to the wrong fic first, so if its obvious i wrote this tired, sorry.


	7. Chapter 7

                The idle _tap tap tap_ of Blakes pen against the table top beat out a simple worried taboo.  She had work to do. At least three recommendation letters, some soundbites to prepare before Mondays media circus, not to mention a mound of paperwork for the security firm they had been forced to hire after the series of bomb threats the previous week. At least Oscar had diverted some funds for it.

                But concentration had proven to be incredibly hard. She was worried. She woke up to a text from _Yang_ at 3AM, _There’s a bad moon on the rise July-October._ No more information. No response afterword’s. Just the danger code for the next three months. Which also would mean that this would be Yang’s longest absence most likely. 6 months of radio silence which would be worrying enough on its own.

                Today also marked Ruby’s third day overdue. She knew that sometimes Ruby’s hunts went long, But this one wasn’t supposed to take even a whole day, and for the first time in a very long while Blake was worried that something might have happened to Ruby.

                The torrential rainstorm punctuated her thoughts with a peal of thunder.

                On top of all that there was the impending possibility that Saffron would need to be put in school. Blake absentmindedly cycled the dust cartridges on Gambol Shroud. She wound up on the Ice cartridge. She liked the way little wisps of cool vapor drifted out of the chamber.

                “Miss Blake?”

                She twitched at the sound. And she was on the other side of the table, looking back at an ice sculpture of herself and a very surprised looking Saffron down the iron sights of Gambol Shroud. She sheathed the weapon and blushed furiously.

                “Uhm. Hi. Saffron. What can I do for you?”

                He seemed to have recovered, as content as she was to simply let that event lay, for the most part. “Are you okay miss Blake?” or not.

                “Yeah.” She sighed. “Just a bit worried. Remind me to set you up with a Panic Button on Monday, will you?”

                “Oh, okay. Is that related to the worry?”

                “Kinda. Turns out there’s a bad moon on the rise. You can never be too careful.” The Ice statue had formed around the chair for some reason. This seemed more Ruby’s department, dust accidents and all. How to fix this… think like Ruby…

                “I don’t really know what that means.” He said quietly.

                “Yeah, its not a commonly used thing. I just got an alert to be aware of the possibility of some kind of danger. No details _of course…_ Ah. Cover your ears Saffron.”

                The moment he covered his ears Blake leveled her fire dust infused Shroud at the icy statue and opened fire. The ice statue was gone. As was the chair. “Hey Saff?”

                “… Yeah?” he slowly lowered his hands, looking on at the scene with a  very neutral form of horror.

                “One, we never tell Ruby about this. Two, _never,_ think like Ruby and then put that plan into action without VERY serious thought. Three, Ruby probably wont notice that we have a new set of chairs right?”

                A quick ride in Ladybug found them at the hauntingly abandoned and incredibly large Walnart. A cloud of 11pm fog rolled its way across the darkened lot. She got a nice parking spot close to the door.

                “This is why I always go shopping at night. this place is a living hell during daylight hours.” She said as she got out of the oversized car. “I swear there is something wrong with this car and I have no idea what.”

                They wandered into the massive cavernous store. Saffron was awed by the bizarre monument to retail that was Walnart. It was easily four stories tall, with two discreet “Levels.” The only differentiating factor between the two floors was a foot of empty space as the second levels. The upper floors shelves were instead suspended form the ceiling, and a lattice of catwalks ran between them.

                “How will we find the chairs miss Blake?” the young boy asked in awe.

                “The only way any thing in this labyrinth.” Blake murmured as she pulled out her wallet and extracted a Lien card. She thrust it to the sky and shouted; “I NEED TO BUY SOME CHAIRS.”

                Immediately a young man in daisy dukes and roller blades sporting a company standard polo emerged from the aisles at breakneck pace only to stop gracefully beside them. He grinned as he received the tip.

                “Right this way ma’am!”

                The structure was a seemingly non Euclidean sin against architecture. Somehow they reached the furniture section in under five minutes with the assistance of their guide. Blake didn’t want to think about trying to navigate it alone without serious preparation. It would be an absolute nightmare to fight in here.

                Her thoughts of logistics were swept away by the towering shelves of chairs. Looking down at the base of the shelves she could see a crack, leading to what appeared to be even more chairs tucked away in some underground mechanism.

                “Its like the goddamn Ace of Hearts…” she mumbled.

                Saffron looked up at her questioningly and she just shook her head. That thing in the backyard was not something he needed to know about. Blake really didn’t like to think of the armory that was every one of her friends rooms. Ruby thought she was being stealthy hanging all those bolts of cloth in her room. Blake knew what she was hiding in there. And she was pretty sure most of it was illegal.

                As she was lost in thought saffron had started poking at a nearby terminal. Pistons sighed and made Blake jump back as the entire wall of chairs slid back, descended into the floor and was replaced by an entirely new wall.

                “That’s… new…” Blake said in a measured tone.

                Now. What looked like a good set of chairs to replace the old ones. Blake was simultaneously very annoyed and very thankful for the lack of a Weiss. It would have been nice to get some advice, but she really didn’t want to deal with the “this is your fault” and the “I can’t believe you thought shooting fire dust rounds at a wooden chair was workable plan” and the “I don’t care how hot you think she is we both know that anyone but Ruby Rose trying to think like Ruby Rose is a really bad idea.”

                Wait.

                _Damn it._

                She started climbing up the shelves.

                “Uhm… What are you doing miss Blake?” Saffron asked as he glanced around worriedly.

                “Avoiding introspection!” she said as she pulled out a chair box to examine it.

                It was a plush office chair. STAIN RESISTANT and WATER PROOF were two claims she found both interesting and ominous. Comfy, food proof, and wheeled? This was a perfect dining chair. She put it back so she could tie Gambol Shroud around the set of five, no six (oops) chairs and hopped off landing deftly. A small pang of guilt shot through her, using her huntsman skills and power to do such a mundane task but she quickly shook it off.

                She gently took the childs hand. They wound their way through the store, first taking a left, then a right, then they walked down four sets of shelves. They were lost. Incredibly lost. Blake really didn’t want to spend more lien on navigation, but… No. there was a plan. She led the pair straight. She was going to go straight to the wall and just go around the outside of the store.

                An hour later they drove into a wall of pouring rain. Blake didn’t even bother to slow down like all the other vehicles. The Ladybug was, well, un-impaired by the harsh weather. Ruby said it was a special dust coating on the wheels.

                Saffron took in the strange industrial city scape with a bit of awe. The Mistralan sky lines had always been fairly low and colorful, the polar opposite of Vales bleak and stark landscape. It seemed so dead to him, which was such a stark contrast to all the people he had met, who seemed so full of life. He didn’t remember as many people carrying guns in mistral.

                His captors were Huntsman. Honestly perhaps captors wasn’t the right word, seeing as they had treated him so kindly, kinder than dad ever had, and had saved him from an attack. Still, they were huntsman, even if they didn’t act like he would expect of one.

                His dad, no, everyone he had heard in Mistral described Huntsman as necessary evils. They were the powerful, violent, and unpredictable weapons that stood at the gates and wandered the wastes. They were never found consorting with the rulers of Mistral, and the common folk avoided them like the plague.

                The huntsman stayed to the schools and lodges and the outside villages. Maybe out there they were more beloved. Or even more feared, as specters that even the monsters of grimm feared. It had been easy living  with Blake and Ruby, but he could see them. See their power. He wondered if every Huntress seemed to impose themselves on the world about them.

                They were getting back to the little house in the suburbs, the rain was unrelenting, occasional flashes of lightening lit the landscape, startling the young man at first. As he was watching the outside far more closely than Blake he saw it first. A Red cloak, long and flowing, stood in front of their house.

                Blakes eyes went wide and worried as they pulled in, taking in the drenched figure.

                “Wait here, ill… just wait here.” She whispered as she got out of the car. She sloughed through the downpour, keeping her eyes on the statuesque Ruby the whole time. A damp rose petal smacked Blake square between the eyes. Her cape was longer than usual, she realized, it wrapped around Ruby, and snaked around Blake as well as she approached. There was a silver light illuminating the cape in front of Ruby. Occasionally her dual auras would flash, a quick silver and a long crimson.

                “Ruby?”

                Her head snapped back to look at Blake. “Blake.”

                Cool steel fingers gently cupped Blakes face, mirrored by warm human ones. Ruby had moved impossibly fast, appearing extremely close to the faunas woman and looking up slightly into her eyes.

                “What color are my eyes?” Rubys voice was pleading, lost.

                “Your eyes are silver.” Blake whispered. _Beautiful, incredible, shining_ “Bright silver.”

                They remained locked there for a moment, before Rubys shoulders relaxed, her hands fell from Blakes face, to her shoulders, and then landed on her upper arms. “Blake.” Ruby whispered, some lucidness finally returning. She gripped Blake in a close hug.

                Blake… Blake was used to this, just not from Ruby. She’d lent her ear and sympathy to many faunas, often it ended with them holding on to her while they tried to claw their way back to the present. This was a little different, Ruby was breathing steadily and standing firmly, just holding on to her.

                A few minutes passed before Blake felt confident in her voice. “Are you okay Ruby?”

                The slightly shorter woman dropped her arms and stepped back, her face held sadness even though she was smiling. “Yeah. Yeah im okay. I just… lost sight of what was important for a moment.”

                Blake fixed her with a questioning gaze, but when no more was forthcoming she sighed. “We were worried sick, where have you been?”

                “I. Uhm. The beowolves were squirrely is all. They kept running away. Yeah.” Ruby grinned awkwardly.

                _Of course, Beowolves fast enough to escape you for a week TOTALLY exist._ Blake thought. She didn’t voice her concern, there would be a time and place for that. “Alright. Come on, lets go get Saffron and put our new dinner chairs together.”

                They retrieved the chairs and child. Blake gave him a reassuring look as they walked in, to tell him everything was fine.             

                “Wait, why did you buy new chairs?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rain stopped for a little while just before they left to go to Walnart and started again on their way home. yessss.....


	8. Chapter 8

               She reached out to the power, pure, glowing, red/silver/red/silver power. Sitting cross legged on her bed, hands steepled in her lap, steely left slightly larger than fleshy right. She poured everything she could into her semblance. Millions of rose petals flooded the small room. For an observer ten minutes passed. For Ruby it felt like hours.

               Slowly her strength flowed away. It was quiet. She contemplated. She carefully crafted and reinforced the mental fortress of her aura. There were so few huntsman that followed the old ways. She hadn’t even been taught how to properly exercise her aura until it was beyond clear that a war was about to start.

               She breathed deeply as her pools of aura began to enter the ten percent zone. The world shifted around her, turning and swaying like she was on some demented sea as she pushed herself, pushed all her power into one massive burst. 5% 2% 1%

               It took every ounce of control not to scream as she pushed well beyond the edges of aura exhaustion. The rose petals burned away in a silver light, her muscles seized and strained and everything in the world hurt. She fell back drenched in sweat.

               Fuck.

               Why did she do this to herself? Wasn’t she strong enough?

               No.

               No she wasn’t strong enough.

               The edges of her vision turned to night.

               …

               Do you enjoy being in pain?

               Did she think that? Her eyes cracked open. She was still in bed. Sitting beside her though was a pale skinned woman with veins of black and red eyes.

               No, not sitting. The bed was not shifted to accommodate Salem. A hallucination, then. Not unusual, it was a common symptom of extreme aura exhaustion.

               “So? Do you?” Not-actually-Salem asked again.

               “No. It makes me stronger.”

               “Arent you strong enough? You are worth hundreds of huntsman.”

               “That’s an exaggeration.”

               “But its why you went back to being a huntress after the war isn’t it!?” Doctor Oobleck shouted as he entered the room through a wall. At least hallucination Salem had disappeared.

               Ruby didn’t respond.

               “By all rights you accomplished what were once your goals! When you were a child you dreamed of being a hero, when you were a teen you enjoyed the fight, when the war made an adult of you, you sought only victory! But now? How come you, unlike your partners, never stopped fighting?”

               “They never stopped fighting.” She hissed venomously at the hallucinatory Oobleck. “You should know that. You are a lot smarter in real life. And they fight in the same ways you do. Similar. I need to thank you, the real you, for what you told me. About yourself. About why you are a hunter.”

               She rolled onto her right side with considerable effort and looked at her metal palm. “Im not like you guys.Im not smart like you. Im good with guns and weapons and fighting, really good! Yeah. But you guys are out there making an actual difference. You are a teacher and historian. Yang is stopping drug trade and terrorism. Weiss is changing the world through the economy. 45% of the SDC’s employees are faunas, and they work on all levels! And Blake…”

               She sighed and smiled wistfully. One couldn’t simply think about the cat fuanas and not smile. “And Blake is out there changing minds. And lives. After everything all she wants is whats good for her people. No. everyone. Shes like my moral compass, you know. Can you imagine what might happen if I didn’t have her?”

               Oobleck was gone. Ruby sighed.

               “I dedicate my self to becoming as strong as I can so that there can be more people like you in the world. Im… a… weapon….” And then she fell into unconsciousness.

              

 

               The icy winds of atlas bit against her skin, her steel.

               A thousand men stretched out before her, and thousands lay behind.

               Her tongue lolled out and she roared lead from a thousand mouths.

               A paladin, no two, no ten were coming up her flank, she dropped to all fours,

               All six

               All ten

               Her claws scythed through the mecha, like a hot knife through butter,

               Splattering blood and oil across the ground

               The dust engines detonated in a beautiful display of color

               Her clawed feet, steely and cold, bit into the ground

               She charged into the brave soldiers of atlas

               Those that stood their ground

               All fell in a red mist.

               A battleship floated above her

               More were coming

               She cackled and howled

               And unhinged her great jaw, letting steel barrels slide from her mouth

               And once more she spit steel at the foe

               The ships were large, yet she was larger,

               The shells she barked were wider than a standing person

               And the atlesians stood no chance.

               What could stand against her?

               She was war.

               A shining silver beast

               She was the same as the grimm

               And yet the opposite

               Grimm thrived on fear, were born from fear

               She was born not of mortal womb, but of war

               Of the will to fight further

               She was a blade, a gun, a weapon

               She was corrupted

               Something dark had wiggled its way in

               But it was something powerful,

               Something with which if she chose she could rule the world.

               But what would a weapon want with such responsibility

               When it was content to cut.

 

               Ruby woke with a pounding heart and drenched in sweat. Heart. Her heart was pounding. In a mad panic she scrambled to the bathroom and yanked he high necked shirt off. She traced from just below her left jaw, down across her heart, to her ribs, across the deep scar of Salems knife on what was once her womb… That was distressing, it seemed so much larger now. 

               She gagged and looked away from the mirror. She could feel the anxiety and confusion spilling into her chest, forcing her to lean down on the toilet. It took her a few moments but she caught her breath. She was still so achey from the Aura exhaustion, but she could feel her wells of power, not yet recovered but recovering. Soon she would be fine and in fighting shape once more.

               Assuming the world got solid around her again, that is. Blake. Blake could help. She pulled on her shirt. But it was late… she shouldn’t wake Blake up…

               She walked to her friends room and cracked the door. Blake looked so peaceful. Maybe she should just leave the faunas alone tonight.  But that would mean she herself wouldn’t sleep… not a good idea while recovering from aura exhaustion.

               Ruby hushed her breathing when the sleeping woman shifted restlessly, her huntsman instincts acting up and telling her she was being watched, no doubt.

               “Ruby?” Blake asked, squinting at the two silver orbs in the doorframe.

               “Hey Blake. I uh… im having a hard time getting to sleep…”

               Blake smiled tiredly and just waved her over. Ruby sheepishly walked to the bed, bringing her metal arm tight to her body and setting to sleep mode so it wouldn’t bother Blake and sat down.

               “Nightmare?” Blake yawned.

               “Something like that.” Ruby whispered as she slid under the covers. Having another person this close helped stave off the worst of the nightmares.

               She snuggled up to the taller woman. It took seconds for Blake to fall back to sleep, Ruby laid awake for a few minutes before drifting into a quiet dream of Patch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I really hoped to start getting more into plot and longer chapters, like, 10k word chapters, but im back in school now and weirdly unmotivated, so im going to just keep writing... I dunno if its good or not, but blech.


	9. Chapter 9

               Blake listened to Ruby’s heart as they lay on the couch, taking a moments comfort in each other. The beat was slow, almost worryingly so, but utterly consistent. Every other second she could hear the deep thump as the organ pushed blood through her friends body.

               “I think Ill hold a rally soon.”

               Ruby tensed a little, but her heart just beat on.

               “I need to calm the Fang. Send a message that we aren’t afraid of these bomb threats.”

               Ruby’s metal arm tightened around her a little, and for the first time in…. since the war she heard two heavy beats before it calmed. She could hear a light growl in her friend. “You should let me hunt them. I can kill these people. I'd do it for you in a heartbeat. To the last man.”

               A few rose petals flutter about the room. Blake looked up at Ruby’s face, which stared off into the far corner of the room, barely making an effort to conceal her rage. It was strange, Ruby seemed at home with this wrath, easily controlling it, but before the war, before she lost her arm Blake couldn’t remember her ever being even truly angry.

               “No, senseless killing will save no one.”

               “They threatened you again and again. It’s far from senseless killing.”

               “This is a battle that we need to fight with words, Ru.”

               The Huntress was silent for a moment.

               “I wish… I was like you and Weiss. I’m not good at using words. I feel helpless, not being able to protect you with the only thing I’m good at.” Her voice drops toward a whisper as she speaks.

               “Sit behind me, on the stage. You can protect me while I talk, and you are a legendary huntress. No one would dare mess with that.”

               “Hm. No one remembers me. I never did pr work like Jauney boy or the rest. Now I’m just a name people hear when they learn about the war. Not that I’m really complaining.”

               “Hm. Still, please, don’t hurt anyone for me.”

               “Fine. As long as they are just empty threats I’ll stand aside. But if they ever try to attack you, I will kill them. Not all of them, but as many as I can find.”

               “Heh. I should have let you fight Adam all those years ago. I bet you an Weiss could have taken him out the first time we fought him.” Weiss and Ruby wouldn’t have been blinded by rage or emotion, and they were faster. Taurus probably would have tried to run, but they definitely would have won. To bad that was never in the cards.

               “Who?” Ruby scratched her head, like she was trying to remember something.

               Blake hadn’t really thought about Adam in… a very long time. She thought she had told the group, but now that she really thought about it that would have been when Ruby was out with RNGR during the Mistrali reclamation campaigns. Besides…

               “He’s no one important. He’s the asshole that cut off Yang’s arm.”

               Ruby balled the fist of her human arm, letting breath hiss from her nostrils.

               “I'm sure he died in the war. When I was young, when I was close to him, I thought he was strong. Ive understood for a long time now that he was weak.”

               “Ah. Like Raven.”

               “Yeah… Like Raven.” Blake remembered the Raven incident. Or rather, she remembered Ruby returning from the Raven incident. She avoided Yang for three months and hunted constantly.

               Ruby flicked the TV back on and they lay there, Ruby quickly falling asleep and Blake occasionally glancing at the news between sending texts to organize the rally, listening all the while to the subtle whirrs that added the melody to the slow song that Ruby’s body made.         

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOON


	10. Chapter 10

               It had only taken Blake a week to set up the Faunas against Terror rally, and Ruby wished she could be happy for her… friend. But something was off today. The pulsing icy wrath that gripped Rubys heart kept erupting back when she thought, about the rally, about the people threatening Blake and the faunas and Saffron. She hissed, gripping the sink basin she was leaning over even tighter and wrestling her aura back inside.

               This was a different anger. She remembered being angry, a long time ago. When Cardin picked on Velvet in the lunchroom, on Jaune, on her other faunas classmates (of which there were distressingly few) but it didn’t even approach the wrath that gripped every single part of her being now, chilling the air around her, occasionally popping off rose petals that gleamed with a strange silver tint over their blood red velvet.

               One floated past her eye, and she focused on it. Her semblance activated involuntarily and the petal just, stopped. The world stopped. If she moved now no human eye could track her, though it would sap her aura extremely quickly. So instead of moving she just observed. The rose petal moved a hairsbreadth, and she could see the petals skin under the silver sheen. The crimson was bright in the bathrooms warm lights, and the black veins that ran through it stood out more stark than they ever had.

               She was calmed. She took a deep breath in… and out. In… and out. And the petal fell at a normal rate again. She was calm now, she could go get ready now. She would wear something like her old outfit, with a high neck to cover the little vein of dark bruise that still snaked up her neck and a pair of casual trousers. She would have to wear the magnetic holster too in case something went wrong and…

               There was a loud crunch as the basin shattered under ethereal silver claws that extended from her fingertips, tinged with a red halo. Her chest started to ache ever so slightly.

               “Fuck.” She whispered and forcefully dragged the Aura claws back into herself. Maybe she would wear some gloves today too. Her grip relaxed as she was taken by a small coughing fit, her eyes closing involuntarily. When she opened them she could see blood staining the basin, and a slight drible off of her lips, and her whole mouth tasted metallic, and slightly acrid.

               Cursing she licked the blood off her lips and fumbled around for her tooth brush for the second time that morning. Eventually she closed her steel fingertips around the toothbrush. She didn’t particularly mind the taste of blood, but she was going to be around faunus who might smell the scent of tainted blood on her lips, so she chose an overpoweringly minty paste to clean her teeth with. In passing she thought that her incisors seemed even sharper today, more bestial, but she didn’t spend any time dwelling on it.

               Once she finished she chuckled and touched the blackened skin over her heart. Maybe this, after everything she had tried, would be what finally killed her. And now, when she finally had something, two something’s, to live for again. She could feel her eyes start to water, so she closed them, grit her teeth, and went to get dressed.

 

 

 ****

 

 

               The first thing she realized, as she sat down  on the stage with Saffron, Sun, and a few of Blakes Fang leadership, was that the gloves were a mistake. She was to damn warm. With the tall collar on her turtleneck and her long pants she was nearly sweating the moment she sat down, with the early august heat.

               She glanced to her left where saffron sat. The boy was looking a little nervous, but she could tell he’d sat on stages before. Poor kid. To her right Sun sat looking bored while Blake wasn’t on stage. Some man with a short tail was bloviating through an opening speech.

               She stretched her metal arm as subtly as possible. Well, stretch was the wrong term she supposed, she rolled the shoulder joint, put her hand through a series of minor motor function test, and as usual they were perfectly tuned.

               She was damn bored as well. She pulled her cloak a little tighter so it hid her hands and reached to the small of her back where her magnetic holster sat. Instead of Crescent Rose she had brought her hand-Axecannons, the Twins. She rand a loving finger over the right hand pistols grip and trigger.

               If someone without hunter level aura and strength tried to fire them, they would break not just their hand but their arm as well.

               Ruby caught sight of Blake walking up on to the stage out the corner of her eye. She turned to look at Blake. She was stunning today. She had slicked her hair back commandingly so it lay straight down her back, her ears stood tall and free above her head, and her white leather coat with its black highlights brought out a severity to her that had become a trademark.

               Something was wrong.

               She glanced over at Sun, who was looking at her with a weird sly smile on his face. She scowled at him. What was that look about? Why was he snickering now? Blake took the podium and opened her speech.

               Threat.

               Ruby looked around, her eyes scanned the crowd, her aura flared and snaked out looking for another aura, looking for what was giving her this weird feeling.

               Attacker.

               A rose petal fluttered out from behind her involuntarily, her eyes were wild now, she had no doubt. She clenched her fists, fighting down her instincts. They were empty threats, Blake had said. Blake was smart, Blake knew.

               Not close.

               No threat in the crowd. The city. It was vast. The rally was in a road, in front of the fang headquarters which sat at a T bone junction. Down the street ahead there were many buildings, with roofs and fire escapes. Her instincts were screaming, roaring at her.

               There! THERE! Her soul itself screamed as her silver eyes locked on the roof of the tower down the street, easily twelve blocks away. Her eyes were sharp, she could see a figure moving on the roof. It laid down. Sniper.

               Blakes ear twitched. She was ignoring her instincts, probably thinking nothing would come of them. She wouldn’t activate her aura, especially since they were expecting bombs not snipers.

               There was a flash on the roof. The world halted. Ruby stood, she stalked over to Blake, gave her a long look as she reached out to the bullet that was moving at a snail’s pace toward her head. She grabbed it and held it with her fleshy hand. The world started back into motion with two loud sonic booms that crashed into each other, one from the high velocity bullet and the other from the high velocity huntress.

               The path she had taken exploded in rose petals.

               “Ruby, what-” Blake asked as she opened her fist to reveal the heavy bullet. A fire dust charge now expended decorated Ruby’s palm with soot.

               And then Ruby was gone. A trail of rose petals fluttered in the breeze, and anyone not in the petal-screen on stage could trace the trajectory of the enraged huntress through the air to the tower down the street.

              

 

 

 

               “So, did you get her?” asked a disinterested woman leaning back on a nearby air conditioning unit.

               A second crack of the sniper gave her an answer, and not one she wanted.

               “Whats happening there Ge-” she stopped in her tracks as she stood and looked at their target. The stage was now a red splotch in the distance, and a red trail was being left by a tiny dot that was rapidly coming closer. That seemed to be her snipers target as another bright fire dust round launched toward it.

               Then he let go and got up. “Run lets just go run!” he shouted pushing her towards the roof exit.

               His panicked screeching cut off with a disgusting gurgle. She looked down. For silver and red tinted ethereal spikes protruded from his chest. As he slid off the claw like light, blood spurting from his chest, she met eyes with a snarling woman with razor sharp teeth and hetero chromatic eyes that shone far too bright for the early afternoon light, one red and one silver.

               Her voice dripped with malice as it struggled to form a scentence. “ **WHO. SENT.** ”

               “We-We- its just a job!” The smaller woman pleaded, backing away.

               In the woman’s off hand the ethereal shape of a massive scythe glowed silver. It shifted, the long blade oscillating to stab out, like a war scythe, and the woman’s red cape billowed, seemingly growing longer in the wind. The scythe jabbed at the prone woman’s neck, not quite touching but threatening her.

               **“WHO HIRED. TELL ME.”** Ever more violence crept into her voice. It was like a monster out of some fairy tale.

               She knew she shouldn’t answer, but, her mouth moved on its own, her brain just obeyed without question. “T-The Kanjaro Group! I don’t know why! They just want her out of the way or something!”

               Blood trickled down the chin of her attacker, and it dripped from the hand that held the ethereal scythe.

               “ **KANJARO?** ”

               With a flick of the wrist blood spurted from her throat, and the second assassin slumped back.

               No one was around to hear the roar.

 

 

               Ruby breathed. In. out. In. out. It was hard. Something was in her lungs. She coughed, hard, blood came up like phlegm. She looked at her hand, where the aura imprint of crescent rose had formed. Her hand burned, and little droplets of blood seeped from the reddened skin, although her personal aura pool soon healed it completely. She glanced at the bodies. Oops.

               The Kanjaro group… she had heard that somewhere before. She would have to do some research. A shame she had killed them in her anger. Why didn’t she feel bad about it then…

               Her heart was still beating faster, she realized. That was… worrying. There was a strange taste to the air, she realized. It was, new. Something unlike what she had tasted before. Savory undertones, mostly spicy and just the right amount of tart. It was… the taste of spicy lime Cheetos. Why was she tasting spicy lime Cheetos? As it faded she walked back to the edge of the tower to look back at the stage.

               She sent Blake a text and looked back to the stage. Soon enough the security guard she was arguing with relented after being shone Blake's scroll and she retook the podium with a new fervor.

               Who would want to hurt Blake? Apart from racists, she supposed. But those were assassins, from what she could remember through the bloody haze. It didn’t seem to add up, some human supremacist hiring  someone to do their dirty work. She started growling without realizing it as her mind churned, trying to catch who the Kanjaro Group was. It was a name she had heard, but she couldn’t recall where. Even with the single minded anger she couldn’t pinpoint it.

               But… she glanced down at the rifle. She had friends, friends in the Vale spy network. Maybe one of them could track this… garbage rifle. She picked it up with her gloved hand, now missing its palm from the caught bullet, avoiding letting her skin make contact with the gun. It was Mistralan, probably military surplus. It lacked the bells and whistles of a civilian commercial model.

               She was going to **_SLAUGHTER every single person who ever dared threaten her Blake ever._** Maybe she would hunt down that Adam guy. It seemed like he had hurt Blake. Actually, he cut off Yangs arm, her **sisters arm. He hurt her Yang.** Definitely, if he yet lived he wouldn’t for long. She would protect her loved ones with her remaining time.

               She wiped her mouth clean and hopped off roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pink eye is kind of intense of Remnant. Sorry the chapter still a bit shorter than I'd like.


	11. Chapter 11

 

               Blake waved out to the crowd after Gherald left the stage. It was a great turn out for something organized over the course of a week, the crowd of nearly six hundred faunas thronged the streets. Her blue and white Fang banners flew over the crowd, a reminder of dark times and a signal of change.

               Blake had said maybe five sentences of her speech, suppressing that hiss of worry that was her Huntsman instincts telling her of danger. Her ear twitched, but she didn’t clad herself in aura, she couldn’t show that weakness to the crowd and her aura was just above the level of strength where it would be incredibly obvious when used. On some level she was worried, that perhaps some anti Faunas extremist would actually turn up and attack, of course she was. She had the Fang all over the place, undercover in the crowd, at each entrance. Her people would be safe.

               For herself… on some level she knew she should be worried. She took a moment to glance behind her, at her friends. They made her feel safe. Sun was relaxed, leaning back in his open shirt, his eyes carefully examining the crowd, oddly suspicious. At odds with his posture. And Ruby… She was sitting forward, her left arm set a few inches forward, her whole body was coiled. Her eyes were wild, flitting about, searching for something.

               She turned her attention back to the crowd, back to her speech. They mustn’t be afraid. And her instincts _Screamed_ at her and then…. A gust of wind blew thousands of petal past her face. Ruby was standing to her right almost touching her, arm outstretched in front of her. Ruby’s face was contorted in some utter rage. She lowered her hand and opened it… Ruby’s glove had been burned away in a little radius in her palm, in the center was a thick bullet, itself charred. A burn dust bullet. And then Ruby was gone and the hurricane of petals overtook the stage.

               Sun was shouting her name and she called back to him. “It’s all fine, were fine.”

               More heavy gunshots rang out, though none were aimed at her. For some reason she didn’t think they were targeting the crowd either.

               She caught one of the petals. They looked different for some reason… She couldn’t quite put a finger on the reason.

               Sun burst through the petals. “C’mon, we need to get you off stage!”

               “No.” Blake spoke with utter confidence. This was important. “Ruby will handle it.”\

               “But someone just tried to kill you for real!” Sun nearly shouted.

               “And I must show that I am not scared of a little assassination attempt. Look, ill keep my Aura up while I speak, it will be fine.”

               Sun sighed but he acquiesced.

               Blake nodded at him and took a moment to collect herself. She breathed, carefully and deeply, distracted by the scent of roses and coper that hung in the air. When she was ready she pulled out a clip of wind dust rounds she had in her holster. It was important to play into her huntress status, of course. She pulled out a couple bullets and channeled her aura into a gust of wind that blew the petals away from her, making her visible once more to the audience.

               She wrapped herself in her aura, it felt sluggish, after so long without pitched combat, but it would protect her. She stepped forward to take back the podium.

               “Ma’am, we need to get you to safety.” A burly fang security man tried to pull her away but she pushed him off and shook her head.

               “Im perfectly safe right here.” Her scroll dinged. Ruby had sent her a little thumbs up emoji. She showed it to the guard and shooed him off.

               “Even today, even now, we are under attack!” She declared. She could feel Sun’s disapprovl for continueing the rally after she had just been shot at, but he would have done the same. She smiled at the thought of him indignantly unable to deny it. “But we don’t stand alone.”

               ---

               By the end of it the crowd was in a fervor. She was good at this. She walked off stage proudly, soon followed by her guard. Sun and Saffron had left the stage a while ago, and she soon met up with them back inside. Saffron looked… stressed, but happy to see her again.

               “Well. That went about as well as it could have.” Blake sighed. She had meant it as a joke, but perhaps she had been lying to herself about the impotency of those threats.

               “Except for the little… you know… ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT?” Sun dragged his fingers down his face in exasperation.

               “The keyword there is attempt.” Blake said cheekily.

               “I knew Ruby was a bad influence.”

               Saffron ran up to her at that moment and hugged her around the waist.

               “Oh, sorry Saff, I didn’t mean to scare you with that. ”

               She felt even guiltier the more the boy snuggled his face into her stomach. She always felt bad scaring her friends with her publicity stunts, a lot more so since they were rarely actually planned events. It was hard, sometimes, to remember her life didn’t begin and end with the Fang.

               Especially since her people had been her only responsibility for the past seven years. It wasn’t like anyone else was any different, Yang had her intelligence work, Weiss had the SDC, Ruby hunted.

               Holding Saffron she realized for the first time how sad their existence had become. They were there jobs, and nothing more. Sun had his job, his team, his family, she knew he and Ruby and Jaune went out drinking and carousing sometimes. And she was happy for him, of course she was, and thankful that he gave Ruby this one outlet for socializing (She knew damn well Ruby lied whenever she said she had “Allies” on a hunt), but she also felt a little jealousy. For herself and for Ruby and for Weiss, and maybe Yang. She felt bad about it, but it was fair right? To want lives for herself and her team outside of service to the kingdoms, to the world?

               When was the last time she had called Kali or Ghira?

               She ran fingers through Saffron’s hair. She offered a sad smile to Sun, who returned it. She picked Saffron up and carried him to the car, gently she set him inside on Ladybugs plush interior. She texted Ruby, who apparently had gone to the CCT for some reason, after doing a thorough check of the surrounding buildings. Blake informed her that she and Sun were going to head over to the police station to make a report.

 

 

               Something went wrong earlier. It was undeniable, and it wasn’t just her anger that was wrong, honestly that felt incredibly right, no something went wrong with the Silver eyes. First… she had never summoned that weird outline of Crescent Rose. If that was what went wrong though she would test it out and let go.

                She had been staring at her hand in the little private CCT booth for a while now. The old long faded scars of childhood accidents and workshop misfires peppered her hand, contrasting the redness of her palm where she had touched the… aura imprint of Crescent Rose. It reminded her of an aura healed chemical burn actually.

               There was blood caked around her fingernails too.

               Her other hand, her metal hand… something was off about it too. It still moved perfectly, but… she just couldn’t put her finger on it. She pulled off the glove on her left hand too, giving her access to the carefully articulating metal fingers.

               There were new little marks around the fingers, like the metal had been warped and carefully reformed. It was just the armor on the fingers, she could feel it, but she pulled the little armored skin off so she could examine the structure underneath. She grimaced when it came loose.

               Apparently she forgot to clean the damn hand when she repaired the arm, judging from the gunky black liquid that was splattered around the joint. Probably dirty oil, yuck. She replaced the finger tip and sighed. Too many questions, too little time.

               First things first. Taurus. Then Kanjaro.

 

 

 

 

               Blake was hissing when she got back into Ladybug. The black and red muscle-cars firm acceleration was a balm to her agitation. The police, were in fact, still infuriating to deal with. Even the perpetually jovial Sun looked aggravated as they drove to the CCT to pick up Ruby.

               Eventually sun spoke up. “That was…”

               “Pointless? Infuriating? Patronizing? The most racist experience I’ve had today despite likely getting shot at for being faunas?” Blakes ears laid down against her gelled back hair.

               “I was gonna say depressing, but yeah sure, your thing works too.” Sun seemed almost chastised.           

               “Sorry.” She mumbled.

               It would have been bad enough if the station had just done the usual bullshit of making her do a load of paperwork to report something, but now they wanted video and suspects, even though they should have gone and found the bodies a long time ago. Its not like Ruby was going to not kill the shooter. Maybe Ruby was right, the Vale police department really was kind of useless. Every major criminal arrest in the past three years had been Huntsmen vigilantes or Vale MPs.

               At least with the Rally done she could hire some guards or something and get back to work.

 

 

               After an hour of heavy traffic they pulled up to the new CCT tower that had been built on the borders of the commercial and industrial districts on the shore of the Beacon River that flowed out into the bay.

               It was a much better location than the previous tower base. Everything had been rebuilt a little better, more centralized after the City was razed in the war. Vale had previously been built for necessity, the urban sprawl had been uncontrolled before, built as necessary, as more and more people had emigrated and reproduced.

               It had really been something that set Vale apart from the other kingdoms, seventy percent of the populace had been centralized in the city before the war, now the city was a bit emptier than it had been. It was better in many ways that the people of the kingdom spread out over the continent, a new city had sprung up in a fortress on the southern coast of Valian Sanus, which with the help of the SDC, the Fang, and the prosperous location had quickly become a new center of trade. Its construction had been overseen by a group of city planners including team CFVY, Ruby, and a task force military engineers on loan from Atlas as war reparation effort, and this group created the most fortified trade city in the world, and with the Fangs help and the SDC the city fueled the prosperous post war boom for both Vale and Menagerie, the city’s main trading partner.

               At one point team RWBY had considered moving to the city they basically built, but ultimately Vale was just more convenient for them.

               Soon enough Ruby walked absentmindedly out of the CCT, her cloak wrapping supernaturally around her. Ruby had once told Blake that she had worn the cloak so long her aura had literally bonded her cloak to her so she could move it almost like a limb. Blake always found it bizarre that the cloak seemed to shorten and lengthen at will… and to absurd lengths at times.

               As she got in to the back seat behind Sun she gave him a light fistbump, and after a moment gave another to Saffron. She looked, tired, and a little off to Blake. Her eyes seemed a bit red, not from crying though, no puffiness. Blake knew crying eyes all to well. No, her eyes just looked strained, far beyond what two hours of computer work should have caused.

               “So, how was your day.” Blake started.

               “Unsuccessful.” Ruby muttered, rubbing her temple with her right hand. “Our city is weird. I found a bunch of dead-drops and other stuff on the roofs after I dealt with the assassins. Dropped it off at my depot. Ill tell you about it later. How was the rally?”

               “It went well. That little assassination attempt really illustrated my point well.”

               “You almost died!” Saffron blurted out. He clasped his hands to his mouth immediately afterwards, blushing hard.

               “I know right!” Sun threw his hands up in sympathy to Saffron and axhasperation at the huntresses.

               Blake opened her mouth… and closed it. What could she really say?

               Ruby was also silent for a moment. Then she spoke up. “Yeah, Blake you really should have had your aura up. I know you felt it.”

               Blake sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think I felt the snipers proper, my instincts aren’t that sharp anymore. Mostly it was residual crowd paranoia I was pushing down.” Blake took a moment to dip into the traffic of the highway bound for their suburb. “I think I will start Aura training again though, at least twice a week. No one will blame me for keeping my aura up during speeches after a proper assassination attempt has occurred.”

               “Blame you? Blake, come on, you’ve got to take care of yourself!”

               “Hey Blakey.” Ruby interrupted. “Do you know where my old Reaper armor is?”

               Blake cocked her head “You mean that weird combat armor from the A Front?” Ruby nodded. “I think you have it in the attic alongside the RNJR Squad armor.”

               “Thanks, I’m gonna dust it off tonight I think.”

               _Worrying._ Thought Blake. The last time that armor had been donned was the last time there had been a Blood Rose. Ruby would explain later, away from Saff and Sun probably.

               “Alright.” She said. She doubted the others knew the history. It was something Vale never liked talked about, War Crimes had always been a sensitive subject after all.

“Sorry Saff, I tried talking sense into ‘em. Nothing to be done.” Sun played it up, obviously trying to lighten the mood for Saffron.

               “Im sorry too Saffron.” Blake sighed, meeting his eyes through the rearview. “Safety has never been… all that important to us. Our own safety anyway. Sun, you went to Haven, you can attest to, well, Beacons idea of personal safety.”

               “ _The Huntsman are for the People, not themselves. They fight so others don’t have to, and in becoming a Huntsman they give their lives to the hunt._ ” Sun grumbled derisively. “It always seemed like something to look up to back in the day, but man, fighting along time Valian huntsman… really gives you perspective.”

               “I grew up in the Fang, the old Fang, and even I thought the kids coming out of Signal and Flare were kind of, you know. Vale never gets that reputation, stereotypically, but even the army troops would keep fighting through some pretty grievous injuries. When those Auxiliaries started joining up, I remember the field doctors trying to keep guys back that had a couple bullets in them.” Blake found a weird sense of nostalgia in thinking about it that horrified her in a way.

               Ruby chuckled. “I got hit with a piece of shrapnel that exposed a rib one time, and I was out of aura at the time so the Doc was shouting at me to stay in the trench and let him patch me up, but we had a lot of people who were worse off, huntsman get special privileges for some reason, so I grabbed a fire dust crystal from a mages bag and cauterized it right in front of him, I still have that scar.” She tapped at one of her lower ribs.

               Saffron looked sick. Sun was looking at Ruby in horror. Blake chuckled at the story a bit herself. It really wasn’t nearly as bad as watching her get her arm ripped out of its socket and off her body. Not much was honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im sure its obvious, but Im doing even less editing and proofreading than usual, Im trying to ride the wave of productivity, so these chapters might get some heavy edits in the future.
> 
> But hey, Suns... around a little this chapter. so thats a thing.
> 
> Next chapter is either gonna be another Ruby Trauma Flashback/Dream Sequence(TM) or more story. so. thatll happen eventually.


	12. Chapter 12

                Weiss could just lie in this bed forever. She could never explain the pure feeling of home that came from the little house in the suburbs, and the sense of her space being her own here. Her room was utterly decked out in her own colors, light blues and whites, with a shock of red here and there like on her bed pillows and highlights on her obscenely expensive looking desk. She smiled, letting a little nostalgia sink in.

                If she had never gone to beacon, grown up with people she loved and who loved her she could imagine this room being a little different. Perfectly organized, carefully and painstakingly cleaned. But she had, and she could see the shuffle of paper on her desk, her little dust work bench still had remnants of her last project left on it (the apparatus had been cleaned, just a few crystals and notes were left in the open.) Her walls would be decorated with paintings and such too, all expensive and pointless. Or nothing at all. Instead she had art she liked, a poster from a band, the prototype of the SDC rifle that she had commissioned from Ruby a few years back.

                A photograph of RWBY receiving medals alongside JNPR’s remaining members, and another photograph of the four of them relaxing on a spring day sat on her nightstand. She remembered the picture, candidly taken by a Velvet before they had noticed her arrival. They were laying on the lawn, closest to the camera had been Yang stretched out her arm laying a little off to her right side, and she had a little smirk on her relaxed face. Weiss had always been a little jealous of the nature of Yang’s arm. Sure it wasn’t truly Huntsmen caliber, but they weren’t huntsman anyway… Blake was sitting on the other side of her, chewing on a sandwich. Tuna salad Weiss believed. The sandwich itself was in her hand and she was using it to gesture at something off camera. Weiss herself was sitting beside her apparently looking at whatever Blake was pointing at, left leg laid out and the other pulled up. She had forgone her normal full nerve prosthetics, instead wearing a pair of blades below simple quad nerve knee joints. Weiss thought about pulling those back out of storage, but they’d have to be recalibrated. Ruby was sitting beyond them, slumping forward and looking out at nothing, her face oddly vacant.

                She remembered asking what she was thinking about a few moments later, and Ruby turning to her, a look of utter confusion on her face, and asked ‘ _H_ ’.  After a stunned silence they all had a laugh. Then later, Weiss had asked ‘ _So what were you actually thinking about?_ ’ and she had said ‘ _I was trying to calculate the force of how fast I was being jerked back and forth the my arm was ripped from my socket. I kept running into the problem of how utterly exhausted my Aura was that day. I was losing blood so fast that every single mote of energy I regained was immediately used to regenerate blood, so…_ ’ she shrugged. Weiss didn’t really know how to respond to that.

                She glanced down at her legs, lifting the steel and silicon stumps up a little. She wondered if Ruby thought her a coward for not using the fully articulated prosthetics instead of the wheelchair. Somehow she doubted it, Ruby had never really been one to judge anyone but herself. Weiss also wondered if the huntress had the same jealousy of Yang’s painless prosthetic that she did. Not that Weiss thought Yang shouldn’t get to have it, or was angry at her for it, just… She missed the days where walking didn’t involve a couple minutes of pain that was far worse than… anything really. Even getting her legs crushed by a bullhead couldn’t compare. Although admittedly, at the time it hadn’t been all that painful, too much shock and blood loss.

                She laid herself back out and glanced back at those two photographs. Ruby, standing next to Yang, next to Blake, next to Weiss, next to Jaune, next to Nora, next to a small podium with Pyrrha’s portrait, next to Ren. An unstoppable warrior of Silver eyes. Vales current ultimate force of power projection. The spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of faunas, and literal leader of one of the most effective paramilitary groups in history. CEO of the SDC, the most powerful economic force on remnant.  The most beloved huntsmen in the war, often called the “Shield of the People” for his kindness and honesty. Another unstoppable force of nature, just more explosions. Someone who could hide himself and nearly entire cities from the sights of anyone hunting them…

                That photograph represented a force greater than Ozpins shoddy shadow cabal ever had. Hell, even if it was just RWBY, or any two of them, they could still bring a considerable force to bear. Weiss couldn’t help but wonder if it was maybe time to actually do something about the worlds state. Sure, she had improved faunas working conditions and stopped all the various abuses of the SDC, and stomped out much of her competition that used the same horrid practice, and Blake had pushed faunas rights ahead years faster than anyone had projected, and Ruby had hunted and slaughtered nearly every grimm older than three or four years in Vale, or even beyond to the entirety of Sanus, and Yang… had done a considerable amount of espionage for Vale, some of which Weiss had surreptitiously blocked, and some of which she suspected Ru of doing the same. She knew for a fact that the plans for the Executioner Rose were fakes, and if constructed would blow up when fired. How cruel of Oscar to make Yang steal from her own sister. And, she supposed, how cruel of Ruby to lay a trap and never tell her sibling.

                She would have to ask… what was that sound? She thought seconds before her door burst open and a burst of rose petals following a red blur catapulted into her room and onto her bed, immediately wrapping her in a hug of firm flesh and warm steel.

                “WEEEEEEISS YOU’RE HOME!” Ruby yelled into her armpit.

                She would have responded if not for the tickling of the thing. Seconds later a second bounce hit the bed and she was immediately being hugged from the other side as well, the vibrations of purrs doing nothing to ease her giggling at the tickles. After a moment Ruby and Blake scooted themselves up so they were eye level, though made no move to give her more space. She was thankful for that, it had been… a while since she had had real affectionate physical contact.

                “You dunces.” She said affectionately, awkwardly hugging them back. “This is a lot more than I was expecting when I got here, though I won’t complain unreasonably.”

                “We’ve had… a trying day.” Blake sighed and Ruby made an odd little sound between a chuckle and a growl. “I… hosted a rally to kinda, dispel some fear around the recent rash of bomb threats and there was a minor assassination attempt.”

                Weiss’s blood ran cold. The other two must have noticed as they both placed reassuring hands on her.

                “It’s fine, Ruby was there, she caught the bullet for me.” Blake patted her arm as she said it.

                “What if she wasn’t? What if she isn’t next time?” Weiss couldn’t stop herself from asking.

                “Shouldn’t actually be a problem.” Ruby said into her ear, a lot closer than she had expected. “I’m taking a break from hunting alone, and we have already discussed me attending any public event she does. I’m also gonna go back to RNJR for a bit”

                “Good. Good.”

                She looked between the two, taking a moment to take in Blakes tanned serious features, so sharp and commanding, amplified by her slicked back hair and carefully clipped eyebrows. Light makeup had been applied to her cheeks and neck to hide scars small and large. Looking for it she could see the indent in the makeup on her neck that traced a rope burn. The little line of makeup on her cheek that covered a shrapnel scar from… the second year of the war? That sounded right. Maybe later. She hadn’t tried to hide the dent in her left eyebrow from the same blast. That was terrifying, seeing Blake clutching her eye, seeing the sisters be immediately overtaken by rage, Yang’s eyes turn red and Ruby’s face go nearly emotionless… there were some smaller scaring around the left side of her mouth that were covered too, but she had them when she came to Beacon, as far as Blake knew at least.

                Ruby had no makeup on at all, her multitude of facial scaring fully on display. Her nose was tilted to the right from its many breaks, a long scar went from beside her left nostril down across her lip, another on her left trailed down her jaw nearly from her ear to her chin, light burn and shrapnel scars dimpled her right. She knew her right ear that was covered by hair was a bit tattered, making the notches in Blakes ears look miniscule. Ruby’s silvery right eye was pulled into a slight squint by a thin scar. Weiss didn’t know where any of those scars came from, the eye seemed new. The neckline of Ruby’s shirt had also creeped up, nearly to her chin. Actually, perhaps it was. If her hands weren’t trapped beneath her friends, she would give in to the impulse to run a finger down the scar on her eye.

                She recalled again, that the people in this bed represented the most powerful alliance on remnant most likely. Maybe she should wait for Yang… but maybe Yang had loyalties. No, she would bring it up now, today. She’d been thinking about it for long enough.

                “Do we trust Oz?”

                Everyone was silent. Blake laid down beside her. Ruby sat up a little, stretched out and supporting herself with her right hand. She searched Ruby’s face, a slight sadness pulling at her mouth and eyes. She glanced at Blake who was quietly chewing on her cheek looking up at the ceiling.

                Ruby plopped back down on her back, sighing.

                “No. I… Trusted Oscar, but. No. Not after…. No.” Ruby sounded so… sad. Betrayed even.

                “Yeah.” Blake sighed. “We know Ozpins kept secrets that nearly killed us. Multiple times. Remember the god damn Relic disaster?”

                “Which one…” Weiss grumbled. Thinking about the stupid dumb fucking lantern.

                “That, that is the problem. Every single one… ‘ _Oz, what does this do’ ’Holding it will dilate time as you read, its excellent for acquiring knowledge.’ ‘Anything else?’ ‘Nothing important.’_ Turns out the answer was YOU CAN ALSO SHOOT FUCKING LASER BEAMS out of it. The stupid time dilation wasn't even true!” Blake smacked her head against the pillow clenched her fists in frustration.

                “Every single Relic. Every one.” Ruby grumbled.

                “So…” Weiss continued, “Do we trust his shadow cabal to protect the world in spite of past failures.”

                They shook their heads.

                “The three of us represent an incredible force on remnant. Our personal allies even more so. I’m sure you know that there are already stirrings of conflict between the kingdoms again, due to the Grimm’s retreat. Apparently, on some level, Salem was right in what she said, the Grimm threat really was keeping humanity in check.”

                Ruby scowled but nodded, and Blake pursed her lips.

                “So, you want to make our own shadow cabal and run the world?” Blake asked, Weiss couldn’t quite read what was in her voice. Perhaps doubt, and a little worry? On some level Weiss wanted pushback, wanted to know that maybe it wouldn’t be necessary.

                “I mean…”

                “We would have to deal with the relics first. I think I could get Raven to open the Mistralan vault.” Ruby said.

                “My parents have no love lost with Oz and there is still a bit of a power vacuum in Menagerie.” Blake mused.

                “I was thinking about starting up a little arms company, I could easily upscale.” Ruby nodded, running a finger along her chin.

                “I talked to Velvet about starting a Faunas protection group for Faunas outside of the walls of the cities. Not that we should turn that into some kind of… I just mean that we would have a lot of sway with the villages.”

                Weiss was stunned. “So, you have already, thought about this?”

                They exchanged glances over her and shrugged.

                “Well, they never did anything for the faunas before so, I kind of had to.” Blake sighed.

                “Jaune and I have had some similar conversations. You know they have some beef with, well, Oz specifically. I’m still frustrated with Qrow for going along with it.” Weiss felt the steel fist clench slightly.

                “Oh. That makes sense…”

                “Lets deal with that later, this is your vacation right?”

                Weiss let herself relax, just fall deeply into the bed. “Hell yes.”

                Blake grinned at her mischievously. “So, do you want to meet Ruby and I’s kid?”

                Weiss squinted at her.

                “Your what.”

                “Our child. We had him wait with your assistant in the kitchen.” Blake smiled more gently, but Weiss still had her suspicions.

               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey... you three... stop it, don't make me change the tags up in here.
> 
> I really need to finish that edit of the first few chapters.


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

 

 

                Ruby followed Blake, who was pushing Weiss’s wheelchair toward the kitchen. She was overjoyed at Weiss’s return. It had been more than a year since they had been home at the same time, and last time had been so short and Weiss had seemed so sad. But she seemed better now. She was happy, and proactive!

                They had so much to talk about! Maybe Weiss knew about this Kanjaro Gro-

 

 

 

                The rain was pouring. Ruby couldn’t bear to turn back to her… whatever the hell she was.

                “You know I’m telling the truth, right?” She could feel those red eyes on the back of her skull. “Please. You have to help us. It’s horrible, this feeling in my chest. You can fill it, for all of us.”

                “I didn’t ask for this.” Ruby whispered, her throat hoarse and her mouth tasted like copper and acid.

                “None of us did!” the Bull faunus shouted, and Ruby instinctually whipped back around. The tall muscular woman’s chalk white skin made her bright red eyes shine out even more starkly in the darkness. “We didn’t want this either! But this is what we have, and none of us will ever be strong enough to fill this void, not with you around.”

                Ruby growled. Not the growl of an angry young woman but the growl of-

 

                Ruby coughed. She only coughed twice, but she could feel the warm, vile liquid starting to pool in her mouth. Blake was looking back at her. Ruby gave a weak thumb up and a closed lip smile. Blake gave her a _look_ ¸ but she nodded and let Ruby slip away for a moment to the restroom.

 

                Blake watched Ruby awkwardly peel off to the bathroom and inwardly worried. She pushed that worry aside as she pushed Weiss into the kitchen where they had left Saffron and Lucy. Weiss didn’t need her help of course. Long ago when she had just started using the chair in every day life she had been quite prickly about people helping her. Her old Schnee pride had a major resurgence for a month or so after the war ended. And then the Whitley incident had occurred.

                Her teeth gritted involuntarily as she walked back into the kitchen, but she could barely keep from giggling when she saw Lucy awkwardly standing by the fridge and Saffron sitting at the table, hands in his lap echoing the awkwardness of the assistant.

                “Holy shit you were telling the truth.” Weiss mumbled. Then she smiled and waved at Saffron. “Hello, I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, but I’m Weiss Schnee. It’s nice to meet you.”

                He smiled shyly and stuttered out “H-hi, I’m S-Saffron.”

                “So. How did this, uhm, come about?” Weiss asked.

                Blake and Saffron shared a look, and then she sighed. “Yang.”

                Blake frequently watched people experience a whole range of emotion, just sitting in her office, talking with faunas who were unloading their trauma, or receiving a scholarship, or looking for help. It was rare that she was treated to the experience of watching someone experience all seven stages of grief in under a second, and Weiss injected indignation and confusion in at random. When she settled on acceptance Weiss just sighed and shook her head.

                “That sounds about right.” Then she narrowed her eyes as she looked at the dining room table. “Why do we have office chairs at the dining room table?”

                Blake stood stock still, “You know, I should check on Ru, see if that cough was okay.”

                “Alright, don’t tell me.” Weiss shook her head again. Blake hadn’t moved an inch since she stopped talking. “Blake?” Weiss spun around to face ‘Blake,’ and swept her hand at the statuesque faunus. She was unsurprised when she was met with a billowing cloud of black smoke instead of flesh.

                “Its going to be one of those days isn’t it.” She turned back around and set her head on the table. “Lucy, I don’t suppose you have inventoried the food yet?”

                “Of course ma’am. They appear to be well stocked with various cup noodles, cheeses, and microwaveable foodstuffs as well as a small stockpile of sweet alcohol that’s hidden in a cocktail mixing cart.”

                “They… Really? And with a child now? Dust…” Weiss sighed. “Hello…. Saffron was it?”

                Saffron nodded.

                “Are you… how do… how are… uhm. Shit. I am simultaneously the worst and best person for conversation.” Weiss put a palm quietly across her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, Lucy make a list. We need food. Real, healthy food, things normal people can eat.” She said to her assistant before turning back to Saffron again.

                “So, Saffron. Nice to meet you. What. Doooo… You do for fun?” Weiss was fairly certain she was in fact just the worst person for this.

                “I… I like to read.”

                “Ah, good! Always healthy to read. Uhm. What do you like to read?” Weiss choked out awkwardly.

                “Non F-Fiction. Like history books and economic books. My tutors tell me I’m pretty good at it…”

                Weiss stopped. She sat up straight and gave him a considering look before she leaned back in her wheel chair and steepled her fingers in front of her. “So… Would you want to hear about a hostile takeover I orchestrated last week? It might be a bit of a break from the tales of excessive violence you’ve probably gotten out of those two.” Weiss smiled, ear to ear. Saffron nodded and smiled bashfully.

               

               

 

                “Ruby?” Blake asked at the bathroom door. After a couple seconds the bathroom door clicked and inched open.

                Ruby was leaning over the sink staring at the small pool of viscous blood. She seemed to be thinking.

                “What’s wrong?”

                “Well.” Ruby rasped, “My running theory is a very specific kind of Aura rejection, but the localization of the rejection and my nature make all this rather unprecedented.”

                “Oh, holy shit. Ruby, are you going to be okay?”

                “Yeah. Yeah, its just the silver aura… My normal aura is fine.” Ruby pulled her sleeve back on her flesh and blood arm. “Look, its weird, its just contact with aura that is actively being manipulated.”

                “Ru…” Blake reached her arm out.

                Ruby just cupped her hand near her arm, and after a second a crackling beacon of silver light was suspended above her steel palm. She gently brought it closer to her arm, and pressed the light against it. Blake could see the slightest twitch of her hand before Ruby brought the light away again, revealing a angry red burn that seeped a small amount of blood. A Crackling of silver light obscured it for a second, and only normal flesh remained. Blake gagged a little.

                “Alright, weird. I can still heal with my silver aura, but touching it… its not burning, per say…” Ruby mumbled. Then she closed her metal hand, extending only her index finger. A long ethereal claw like spike of aura materialized out from it, occasionally pulses of Ruby’s crimson aura echoed through the silver spike.

                “Wait Ruby!” Blakes objection was cut off with the sickeningly wet sound of a claw entering Ruby’s flesh. Blake didn’t turn away before seeing the sizzling, popping, blood try to escape the tight prison of the wound, and the scent of burning flesh and blood touched her nose.

                “Fuck, Ru, warn me before you do that.” Blake gagged out.

                “Hm? Oh, sorry, I, here.” She yanked the claw, bringing with it some sizzling droplets of blood. There was another smell Blake _almost_ recognized. Ruby washed off her arm and hands and healed up good as new making sure to show Blake the unblemished skin.

                “Its… Fine. Honestly, the fact you don’t even respond to that kind of pain is worse than the smell.”

                “Sorry. Sorry.” Ruby finished wiping her arm off and gave Blake a gentle hug. Blake sighed and leaned in, patting her gently on the back before Ruby broke the embrace.

                “Im going to try one more thing, if you don’t mind?”

                Blake shrugged and Ruby nodded. Ruby stepped back, took a wide stance, and a few rose petals drifted off of her shoulders. Ruby nodded a couple times, and turned to Blake and smiled. Blake picked a petal out of the air. There was a silver sheen on it, though it lacked the veins and wetness of the petal earlier. Blake couldn’t help but-

                Ruby’s eyes shot open and bulged ever so slightly. She leaned over the sink again and started coughing and hacking. Specks and blotches of blood soon decorated it and the mirror. Soon Ruby was left coughing and hacking and gasping for breath.

                “Fucking hell Ruby.” Blake thwacked Ruby on the back, freeing a few more globules of blood, some worryingly coagulated. “What did you do?”

                “Semblance-” Ruby was bent double by a sudden burst of coughing. She grabbed the sink for support, her fingers pushing straight through the steel basin that had recently replaced the ceramic sink.

                Blake saw it, just for a second. The silver fled from Ruby’s eyes and suddenly Ruby’s question when she came back from her last hunt flashed through Blakes mind.

                And then it was back, the gentle glow of silver subsumed her irises once more.  Ruby was left panting beside her. Blake pulled a towelette from the cabinet and pulled Ruby’s head back a little. Gently she pressed the cloth against Ruby’s chin, gently wiping down to clear the blood away. For a moment their eyes met, and Blakes heart skipped a beat. Ruby was looking at her with some emotion that Blake couldn’t quite read. Her eyes were always… intense. There was something ancient in those eyes, sometimes it felt like the weight of history was staring out at her. Sometimes her eyes would be peaceful, a little less tired, it was more like young Ruby, team leader Ruby. They were like that now, in a way.

                Blake felt warmth tinge her face and she turned her eyes back toward cleaning the blood from Ruby’s mouth and suddenly realized that she had pulled Ruby’s lower lip down a little before she stopped. She blushed a little more, but then found herself completely distracted by Ruby’s blood covered teeth. They were… sharp, predatory. It was every bit of Blakes self control that stopped her from testing the points, running a finger down the slight serration of her canines.

                “Holy shit Ruby, have your teeth always been like that?” Blake almost gasped.

                Ruby grimaced as Blake removed the towel. She sort of shrugged. “’While. I kinda figured, maybe I’ve got some faunas in me? Or its another silver eyes thing. Considering that stupid relic I should know, but who knows what the stupid thing decided was relevant.” Ruby grumbled quietly enough that even Blake nearly missed it. “ _Dilates time my ass, thinking we wouldn’t try to use it to fucking read._ ’

                “I’m pretty sure he was testing us, I doubt he expected us to believe the time dilation thing.” Blake leaned against the door frame, more than happy to move on.

                Ruby shrugged and they were quiet for a moment. Ruby turned on the sink and started cleaning the blood away. “Raven is going to be a pain.”

                “Huh?” Blake tilted her head.

                “When I grab the relic. I want to, uh, recruit RNJR first. Take them with me. You know, for the inevitable backstabbing.” Ruby tried pushing the metal back into place, with some minor success. It wouldn’t hold water but it would make a proper patch easier.

                 “You think she will?”

                “Its Raven. She is, you know, kind of the worst? We worked together three times, and she tried to betray us twice. And the first time she was betraying someone else.”

                “Huh. Yeah.” Blake just nodded.

                “Also I probably made her extremely mad when I told her that if I saw her on this continent I would kill her on sight. So. There is that.”

                “Part of the ‘Raven Incident’ I assume?”

                “The conclusion. It was, well… Basically I got drunk and angry with Jaune and Sun one night, saw Raven talking to Qrow in one corner of the bar and, well… I mean Sun and Jaune tried to hold me back but I just kinda. You know how it goes.” Ruby grimaced and made a flippant hand gesture as she trailed off.

                “Yeah.”

                “I also took her stupid hat, so. I have that bargaining chip.” She smirked, distinctly self-satisfied.

                “Hah. Did she try any Maiden powers on you?”

                “Nah, she knows how that would end. Oh dust, the anti-magic pulse is going to be the absolute worst. Fuck, what is that even going to do to me.” Ruby groaned as she pressed her palms to her forehead and sat down on the edge of the tub.

                “Try not to find out. Eyebeams, also, are something you shouldn’t do.” Blake shivered as she imagined her friend incinerating her own eyeballs in a blast of silver hellfire.

                “Fuck, you’re right.” Ruby sighed.

                “So, Weiss will probably be able to get Winter to open the Atlas vault, does that leave me with the Vacuo relic?”

                Ruby shrugged. “Up to you, I think she would be most willing for you, but maybe you could get Sun to do it? Or maybe Weiss, she always had a bit of a… _thing,_ for her, yea?”

                “Yeah. What do we do about the Vale relic?” Blake tried to remember the Relic quest, as much as she would like to forget the whole ordeal it had remained relatively clear in her mind.

                Ruby tapped her finger against her chin. “Meh, To be entirely honest, we really just want to make sure Oz doesn’t keep the full set of them. We really just want to make sure he doesn’t have access to the alleged ‘Ultimate Power’ or whatever.”

                “Yeah. Its… weird that never got used, right? What if it was just bullshit and Oz just didn’t want Salem getting any power? Which is fair, but, you know.” Blake shrugged with her entire body, palms up in vague aggravation.

                “Coulda just told us?”

                “Yeah.” Blake dropped her arms to her sides.

                “Yeah…” Ruby sighed.

                “So then what?”

                “Well, I’ll pull out my documents and patents from Reaper Armaments, start that up again. I should have the resources to buy some factories and get started again. Whats your first move?”

                “Ill start up… Hm, what should I call it?” Blake stepped away from her spot in the doorframe to look at herself in the mirror.

                “Hm, you are out there to protect the outlying villages, right? How about the Protectorate? Outland Protectorate?”

                “I dunno, that sounds pretty, official. Not quite the brand I need. Rough Riders?” Blake posed slightly in the mirror. She tried for ‘professional’ and ‘command’ but she just looked kind of intimidating and cold.

                “Outland Fang?” Ruby raised her eyebrow.

                “Blakes… Bite?” Blake tried a different pose. Nope, that just looked evil.

                “Ooh! Blakes Battalion! How about that?” Ruby hopped up.

                “We’ll workshop it. Definitely workshop it. I actually have the groundwork, so it should be easy to set up. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about this for a year or so.”

                “Hm, I’ll give you a 50% discount on Reaper Armaments arms and armor in exchange for feedback, publicity, and advertising.” Ruby joined Blake at the mirror. Somehow the addition of the battle scared huntresses own aloof pose just made them look more evil.

                “Hah, deal.” Blake thought it might just be the black and red color schemes. Her light blue and white Fang symbol was hidden at this angle.

                “… Are we going to, uhm, oust General Ironwood and Professor Kilikey? I’m pretty sure Queenie will be sympathetic to us.”

                “That’s a Weiss question I think.”

                “Yeah. Fuck, we’re planning on overthrowing Oz.” Ruby scowled at the mirror. The addition of her sharp and still bloody teeth surprisingly just made it worse.

                “Yeah. You sure that you are okay with this? I know you and Oscar were… close.”

                “Yeah. Yeah. I… Oscar changed, over the war. The more he and Oz were together, which was always all the time, the more… like Oz he became. I believe that they want what’s best for the world, and that they took the steps they thought were right to protect… everyone. But they fucked us over so much. They made a lot of bad choices, and the time has been long overdue for someone else to take over.” Blake saw Ruby’s face fall in the mirror as she talked about it. At least they didn’t look evil anymore.

                Blake shook her head at the mirror. “So, the three of us are going to take over the world because the previous ruler screwed us over, and most of the leaders are already corrupt as hell.”

                “The two of you. I would destroy the world in days if I took the reigns.”

                “Hah. I think you could do a good job, if you put your mind to it.” Blake consoled.

                Ruby chuckled, then stopped and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. “…  I want a ship. Like, one of those flying battleships.”

                “What, are you going to start up that thing that commander Faraday suggested? What was it, the Crimson Rose Legion?” Faraday hadn’t been the worst of Vales generals, although the first two made it a rather low bar. At least he was assassinated by the enemy instead of mutiny.

                “Blood. The Blood Rose Legion, you know, after that thing the Atlas troops always thought I did?” Ruby’s scowl returned. Most of the blood had been licked away, Blake noted.

                “Oh yeah, dust, cant believe I forgot that. Did… Did you ever…?” Blake wasn’t sure how to approach the question. She’d always wondered about those rumors, but she had never had the right moment to ask.

                “Paint my symbol on a wall with the blood of my enemies? Once, and, to be fair, that was after the Menagerie invasion, so. I was somewhat angry at the time. Got one hell of a propaganda campaign started though. And some asshat just decided to use that as an op name.” Ruby started patting herself down, checking her pockets for something,

                “I saw the op file for that after the leaks. Did you?”

                “Nah, I didn’t pay much attention to that whole, thing, was it interesting?” She asked as she pulled out a pack of strawberry chewing gum. It was crumpled, but still had a stick or two left in it.

                “It was literally just ‘Drop the Reaper on the compound, lock it down from the outside and wait.’ They had a whole file folder for that sentence.”

                “Huh. What about the CFVY machine? Didn’t it have an Op that was just ‘Charge!’ or something?”

                Ruby offered her one of the two sticks of gum but she just shook her head and continued. “Yeah, ‘Atlesian Roast’ I think. Those Rook class mechs were tough, and team CFVY’s…”

                “I helped make that. Well, I made that DFH in its chest. The recoil reduction on that thing is insane. Two hundred and twelve mil cannon, that recoil would knock down ANY atlas mech that tried to fire it, with or without all the recoil reduction.”

                “I’m pretty sure that thing caused half the tinnitus for the entire war.” Blake gently elbowed Ruby. For a fleeting moment the mirror showed two relatively normal people.

                “It was basically a sawed-off artillery piece, can’t exactly suppress it.” Ruby grumbled, somewhat indignant.

                “Fair.”

                “… Huh. I might actually start up the Blood Rose Legion.” Ruby looked in the mirror, thoughtful.

                “Really?”

                “Yeah, I need into the Atlas secret bullshit vaults.”

                “What do you want from them? You mean the ‘Blueprints for things so fucked up even Atlas won’t build them’ right?”

                “Yeah, those are the ones. I don’t care about most of the stuff in there, I’m pretty much just looking for the cooling systems they use on battleship engines. The big ones,” Ruby held up her hands and spread them to indicate the monstrous size of what she was referring to. Blake only saw one of the big Atlesian battleships once, during the only deployment of the Executioner Rose. Oddly enough the Rose herself was the one who made that… thing illegal. “the ones treaty made illegal. Unless they aren’t using dust engines I can’t figure out how they cool that thing. I’ve seen the size of those engines, they should be hot enough to melt _dust infused steel_. Unless its not a dust engine, but if they aren’t using dust engines then I have a lot more questions. That and I’m bad at programing, and I’m pretty sure they have a list of people to use for stuff like that, plus prepackaged blackmail.”

                “I might actually be able to hook you up with a head programmer. I assume for robots and mech stuff?” Ruby nodded, cautious doubt in her eyes. “No really, I know this kid who was making smart AIs in his garage. Poor kid is working the IT desk for us now, which is frankly beneath him.”

                “I’ll give him a shot. I’ll send him a prototype in… a couple days maybe? With instructions and outlines and such, of course.” As Ruby meandered down her train of thought Blake couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else Ruby wanted in that vault. If she cared about those engines so much she would have spent time investigating them during the war, right? Perhaps it was just the Ruby wanted to build her own now, and Blake was just being paranoid.

                “I’m sure he’ll be delighted. The most challenging thing he’s done since we hired him was fix my secretary’s laptop after it got possessed by that Geist.”

                “Pft. Man, remember when a Geist got into one of the exosuits?”

                “Was that the one Yang supplexed so hard it knocked the Geist out?”

                “Hah! Yeah. Ah, fuck. Yang.”

                “Yeah. I’m sure Yang… wont find out, if we’re careful. Not until its to late anyway.”

                “Why? She is Oz’s best agent.”

                “Yeah, but do you really think he’s going to tell her that her entire team decided that he was unworthy until its entirely to late for it to matter?”

                “Point.”

                “She’ll be mad.”

                “A lot of people are going to be mad.”

                “She’s your sister though.” Blake put her hand in the small of Ruby’s back, she wasn’t sure if she was trying to comfort or reassure.

                “Yeah. I mean I’m gonna feel bad about it, and I’m not gonna kill her.” Ruby leaned on the sink again, putting both hands on the rim and looking at her reflections eyes.

                “Of course not.”

                Ruby fell silent.

                “What if she tries to kill you?” Blake asked.

                Ruby’s faced dropped. “… I don’t know. Maybe she will hurt me enough to kill me when I’m forced to fight back. Hopefully if it comes to that she will hate me enough to not live with the guilt.”

                Blake searched Ruby’s face. There was no anger, no sadness, and no mirth. She just seemed to be stating her mind. Ruby seemed fully ready to just let Yang attack her until she felt forced to fight back. _That was a huntsmen thing, right?_ Blake thought. Vaguely she recalled some honor code about fight till you die or something. Some weird thing that wasn’t taught in the academies.

                “You won’t run?” Blake put her hands-on Ruby’s shoulders, feeling the bits of dust metal that protruded from her left shoulder through her turtleneck. She rubbed with her right hand, not wanting to pinch any skin on the left.

                “… Holy shit, I can just run can’t I?” Ruby’s head shot back up. Blake couldn’t hold back a snicker. “What, it’s been a while since I needed to run from anything.”

                “Ruby, your whole… thing is moving fast.” Blake snickered a little harder.

                “Yeah, but usually I’m running _at things_. To hit them with my giant dust damned scythe!”

                Blake outright laughed, leaning her forehead against the nape of Ruby’s neck. Ruby leaned her head back against Blakes warmth.   

                After Blake settled down she spoke up again. “So. Should we go see how Weiss is doing?”

                “Pfft, yeah. Has she ever seen a child?” R

                “Ha. I mean. Huh. Does pulling kids from burning buildings count?”

                “… Probably not?” Blake shrugged.

                “Then probably not!” Ruby declared, marching out of the bathroom.

               

 

               

                “So, he tries to bribe me. ME! I literally could make and spend more money than he was worth in the time I spent finalizing the takeover, which was about ten minutes. Right Lucy?”

                “Yes ma’am.”

                “Ten minutes, by and sell the idiot. He was literally using slave labor, he’s lucky I don’t hire some huntsmen to hunt him and his little… you know what no, I’m going to do that. Lucy, put that in my schedule, call out a hit on him and his little slaving ring.”            

                “Who are you calling a hit on?” Blake asked as she walked into the room, trailed by a pale Ruby. Maybe she was always that pale.

                “A couple days ago we found out one of our competitors was using slave labor. Again. I swear, if this keeps happening I’m just going to make the SDC and _actual_ monopoly.”

                “Want me to do it?” Ruby asked as she opened the fridge.

                “Hm, yeah, what’s your price these days?”

                Ruby just shrugged. “Honestly taking out this jack off sounds more like recreation than work.”

                “Still.”

                “I don’t really need money. I did a streak of S and S+ rank hunts a while back and I’m just resting on that windfall. And I’m sure I have plenty of cash from all those military patents. I let that accountant you lent me deal with most of it.”

                “Huh, so you are that mysterious huntsman. You know, the running Atlas theory was actually Winter?”

                “I don’t mind that comparison. Your sister is both bad ass and hot.”

                “RUBY!” Weiss shouted indignantly, overshadowing the snickers and nods from Lucy and Blake.

                “Sorry, sorry. Anyway, hopefully you can pay me in contracts.”

                Weiss shook her head. “Yeah, we can work all that out later. What I want to know, is how you three have been surviving in a house stocked exclusively with art student food and booze!?!”

                “What’s wrong with what we eat?” now it was Blakes turn to be indignant.

                “You know exactly what is wrong with what you eat! Do either of you even remember how to cook something that isn’t microwaved?”

                “No. Usually you and Yang cooked, actually.” Ruby pointed out.

                “Ah, yes. So we did. Regardless, while I am here we will be eating like actual people, tomorrow, will be grocery day!” Weiss raised her fist to the sky, her face set in stone, her eyes glowed ever so slightly.

                “Or we could order food.” Ruby suggested. “That way we can just rest tomorrow? Its been a long day for all of us.”

                “Fine. Fine. ” Weiss acquiesced quickly as she considered the assassination attempt earlier that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this is less edited than usual. which is saying something because its pretty obvious how little ive edited the rest of this. I still plan to go back through and do another round of edits at some point.
> 
> By the way, Blake and Weiss's rooms are on the ground floor, while Ruby and Yang have rooms on the second.
> 
> The military ideals of Atlas and Vale are polar opposites, which due to basically nothing but lucky circumstances gave Vale a massive advantage. Atlas builds TONS of robots for its army, the Paladins and Knights are essentially mass produced, which can be extremely effective, but Vales geography made the Vale ideals of quality over quantity useful because Atlas couldn't Zerg rush and swamp positions and the relative strength of Vale mechanized forces dwarfed the Atlas machines on a individual level.
> 
> Atlas had a bit more success in Vacuo due to being the support army for the more balanced Mistralan forces, and having fewer choke points and such to deal with. The invasion of Vacuo ultimately failed because it was close to the end of the war and Atlas still reeling from an utter defeat in Vale and there forces were split between Vacuo and Menagerie, which they were attempting to subjugate.
> 
> They had the most success in Menagerie purely because menagerie lacked a real military or defenses due to rather cruel regulations from Atlas and Vale.
> 
> The Menagerie invasion made a few important people in Vale very angry, specifically the fourth (and current) general of Vale's military, ninety percent of the huntsmen, and Ruby Rose who in response finally gave up the plans to the Executioner Rose. 
> 
> Also the Mecha Corps for Vale classifies their mechs in terms of chess peices, Pawns being equivalent to Paladins in in size, though they are more heavily armed and armored and are a bit more nimble, at the downside of being about three times as expensive to build, though slightly easier to maintain.
> 
> Im considering writing a chapter of someone watching a documentary about that war for exposition and color.


	14. Chapter 14

               Anger was not a strange emotion for her. It was hot, it was full bodied, it warmed and confused her. It was unpleasant. She was angry for a moment when she was too slow to stop the Atlas firing squad from executing fifteen civilians the coastal city of Endon on the fourth and final week of its occupation. But she was only angry for a moment. She was not angry, when Atlas invaded Blakes home, attempted to enslave its people. She was not angry when she fought Tyrian. She was not angry as she punched his face into a ruined pulp, and shattered his skull into his brain. This emotion that had become more and more prevalent, more overwhelming… No, she was not angry when someone tried to assassinate Blake. It was icy and cold, this emotion. It chilled her, removed pettiness and distraction from her. It stole her control, and pushed her body to new heights of strength. It was like something in her was being purified. Something silver. Rage. She wondered if summer had felt it, the silver rage that was so soul rending. That so quickly cut away emotions.

               But there was something new there when she realized Blake was being threatened. It was hot, and sticky, like blood. It leaked and pooled and spread through her. It felt wonderful, to have warmth fill that silvery void left by the rage. It was warm and sticky and liquid, all black and swirling red. It poured into her, and it empowered her. Wrath.

               There was something to that wrath. That pride. It was power so close, yet just out of reach. Power… she would need it again. She had been ready, so ready for so, so long, to finally be killed. To die. To be set aside like excess weapons after the war is done. She was a weapon after all. That knowledge in many ways let her be strong. Push her body to limits that other huntsmen couldn’t, because they were people. Warriors, but also people. She was Ruby Rose, the Silver Eyed Warrior, a machine of death, a weapon, wielded by many, now Weiss and Blake. Ruby knew they saw her as a partner, and they weren’t wrong. It simply wasn’t the whole story.

               Ruby also was missing the full story… she could feel the gaps in her memory. A couple days here and there, her last hunt… The week or more that she had been in Salem’s captivity.

               There was more. Silver was such a hateful color. She learned things, things no one should have to know, when she first used that lamp. Deep in the dead of night, to do some reading, just like Oz said it would. And then it didn’t. its true function, as she learned four nights later, on her third use, was to impart a chunk of information chosen at random from whatever a person needed to know at any point.

               The first thing she learned was the nature of the silver eyed warrior. Not everything, much remained shrouded in mystery. But she knew how it affected a person from their conception. It made them grow stronger faster, heal faster, and it affected their brain chemistry. It formed them into a living weapon, a creature that was exceptional at the creation of weapons, and the activity of violence. The gap started out small, and then it grew, slowly shaping her. Her. She might as well be an it. She was a weapon, just like Crescent Rose. But far, far deadlier.

               It was hard, discovering that she wasn’t a hero at all, and never would be. Just a weapon. A thing, to be pointed at an enemy so someone else could claim their victory. She fell asleep crying into Jaune’s arms that night.

               The next day she had been bewildered, confused, angry… she thought long and hard about herself. She didn’t truly realize the power that lay in her, as a weapon. But on some level, things had started to click together. She still saw herself as a person, deep down, but on the surface of her mind she made a vow. To be a weapon that protected her allies and destroyed her enemies.

               Then two nights later she used the lamp again. And the next night. As often as she could, or once per day for nearly two weeks without anyone finding out. She learned a lot. She learned to build better, stronger guns. She learned aura techniques forgotten by time, such as her self destroying aura exercise routine, which she taught to RNJR. They would never be weapons like her, but she could help them become warriors.

               She didn’t know why she hid it from _WBY. And then she did. Yang was looking for adventure, Jaune was looking to fight monsters. Weiss was looking to prove herself and become something more than her family name, Ren was looking to kill the monsters that killed his loved ones. Blake wanted to escape her past and find a better future, and Nora just wanted to fight. She wanted to protect them, so they could become everything they had the potential to be. All of them. It was just different for the two teams.

               And she had. She’d fought long and hard to protect them. There was an arsenal of proof. A pair of mint green pistols, a macabre pair of prosthetic legs, a lacy umbrella… a katana made from dust, taken from a defeated opponent, but one of the few left living.

               She got up from her little chair in the basement and walked over to her armor. It was strange. She ran her hands along it, piece by piece, reminding herself of its functions, its weaknesses. The strange helm with the pretend eyes, the matte black paint with subtle red highlights, the dust storage, which she always loaded with her signature gravity-wind dust mix.

               She didn’t need the armor. She looked at her bear forearm. She clenched her hand, letting the thick muscle tense. She pushed her red aura through her arm, just like she would to Crescent Rose. She saw tighten, and bulge slightly. Then she remembered the imprint of her scythe… And she got an idea.

               She focused, disassociating her aura and her body, focusing… focusing… Then she took a step back. There was a crackling sound as a ton of her aura, nearly a quarter, exited her body. She opened her eyes, and before her stood a crimson outline of herself. Though bizarrely the imprint was wearing her cloak. It turned to face her. She could feel the simple intelligence in front of her, like a simple computer.

               Cool. She mentally ordered it to pick up a screwdriver. It did.  She sent it towards her machining table, where it sat down and began producing the prototype she had been working on when she started daydreaming.

               She wondered…. How anatomically correct her clone was… No, fuck, it hadn’t been that long since she had gotten laid. It had only been… two… years… fuck. Ruby hissed under her breath. The last time hadn’t even meant anything, just some drunken hookup she barely remembered. She didn’t even remember if they were a guy or a girl. Before that… well, she hadn’t really had any intimate, loving encounters since the war. Since RNJR… Ruby hugged herself and leaned against the wall, remembering the feeling of Jaune inside her, the taste of Nora, the gentle skill of Ren’s hands…

               Her aura clone was touching her. It had walked over to her, setting aside its work, and began grinding against her, hands on her thigh and back. She recoiled, and the aura imprint dispelled itself, a small amount of it returning to her, the rest becoming a deluge of petals that flooded the room.

               She almost screamed and cursed, but she didn’t. She almost wished she’d let that imprint do as it pleased. As she pleased. She said. She made her way shamefully upstairs. She was a weapon, and she needed servicing after all, she supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this more a filler bit than a real chapter, Im sitting on about oh... probably another 10k words, counting the next official chapter and the documentary thing together, and neither of those are more than halfway done so... theres that.
> 
> Qrow has seen things no uncle ever should, but hey thats the risk of spying on a bunch of horny teenagers huh.
> 
> Hope everyone enjoyed this peek into Ruby's completely healthy mental state and sense of self worth!
> 
> Also this takes place the night after the last chapter, so do with that what you will.


	15. Chapter 15

               In the future she would know that these were the final months of the war. At the time it was just another day, another week. Ruby strolled through a forest in the outskirts of Mistral, something between a scout mission and a search and destroy order bringing her through the lush forest. She kept rolling her newly gained mechanical arm.

               A man stepped out into the road in front of her. A few more... ten, moved to surround her, most in the forest but a couple in the canopy. Her silver aura wrapped around her, and her own aura instinctively coursed through her flesh and muscle. The man in front of her was wearing an old white fang mask, and a pair of stubby horns poked out of his styled red hair. He looked almost familiar, though Ruby couldn’t quite place the face.

 _Doesn’t matter. Enemy._ Ruby thought. She wished sometimes it was like in the movies, when the badass character had someother personality that took over when they fought. Unfortunately it was still the same bored Ruby… the man was talking at her, all confidently. Something about hurting Blake by killing her? Crazy person then. Not like they had some weird magical connection. When was the last time they had talked? When was the last time she had talked… oh, right earlier that day on the scroll with Jaune. Ruby yawned. The man shut up. Ruby hadn’t slept for a couple days, and didn’t really care about this crazy guy yelling at her.

               _Nice coat though._ she thought as a bullet fired from his rifle ricocheted off of her cheek. There went… less than one percent of her aura. Odd, it was a rifle cartridge. Must have been a dust based round then, or she had just gotten stronger again. She cocked an eyebrow at him. He took it as a signal to charge, and four of the auras around her came with him. His katana swung down at her and she caught it with a metallic rasp in newly minted steel hand, her right hand pulling her heavy revolver from her thigh and blasting away two of the attackers before anyone realized what happened.

               She tore the sword from his grip. He looked strong, strong enough to match her, almost, if they had no aura. That wasn’t the world they lived in however, and the river of aura that reinforced her muscles, that made her skin like iron, was simply too much for the idiot that attacked her alone.

               He realized it all to late as she bisected him from his right shoulder to his hip with his own sword. The rest of his little posse fell to her revolver. She picked up his scabbard and cleaned the sword and wondered what the foolish man had hoped to gain. She hadn’t paid half enough attention to remember that he had wanted to hurt Blake. His death wouldn’t have been half so merciful had she paid attention to him.

               She played with the sword, _Wilt_ a small inscription on the blade told her, as she walked. Occasionally she pointed the shotgun/scabbard at trees, making little ‘bang’ noises as she tried to figure out how to sight the thing. No sights, not meant for accuracy. Weird that he was using a slug then. Didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered except the weight of the scythe on her back and the scroll in her pocket.

               Long after she grew bored of the new sword and stowed it, still walking down the forest road to  outlying villages, she caught herself running the tips of her fingers over the ring finger of the metal hand. She shook her head and forced herself to stop. The path ahead was much too long to be looking back now.

              

 

 

 

               In the future she would know this was the final day of the war. But at the moment, she wasn’t really thinking about that. She sat on the barrel of the _Guillotine Rose_ , a twenty story tall Queen Class Vale Mecha, which she modified in something like desperation.

               She finished the design months ago. It was a monster. It horrified her. She hated its existence. But Atlas and Mistral were dying. She didn’t know how she knew, but she _knew_. She could feel them dying, crying, fading. The war had to end, and there would be no treaty with Vale having a victory by attrition guaranteed at this point. But the Atlas-Mistral Confederacy was stubborn.

               She hated them both. Atlas attempted to enslave the faunas again, and Mistral had been complicit. But she didn’t hate their people. Weiss, Winter, Pyrrha, Penny. She choked as she thought about them. It hurt. They still hurt. After everything else they still hurt.

               The cold mountain wind barely bothered her, a gentle ache in her flesh and a cool emptiness in her steel. The ground shook with another step.

               She pushed the pain of loss down, but, there was too much, it was like an overflowing cauldron. She was alone, up here. She unclipped her helm from her belt and slid it over her head, metal plates clicking into place, shock absorbant padding pressing against her scarred skin. She shifted, moving her legs into a gentle cross, and for the first time in months she leaned forward and pulled up her hood and _wept._

               She thought of Yang’s arm, Weiss’s legs, she thought of the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, not the lives of warriors, the lives of wives and husbands and children, she thought of Penny and Pyrrha and Taiyang and the huntsmen she never knew, she thought of Oobleck and the mountains of knowledge that lay buried in his grave and the rubble of his home, she thought of twenty three Vacuons lined up against a wall, pearly rifles at their backs, she thought of her communications officer, she thought of Haven, and Shade. She thought of every soldier that had fallen under her scythe, just hired or drafted to fight. She thought of a painful hour, when blinded by anger she painted her symbol onto a wall with her bare hands in the blood of her fallen foes. She thought, and wept, silently, gasping for air, but barely moving.

               Eventually she was still, she looked up. The army below her was advancing, and soon enough they would turn the mountain to find the great wall of Atlas, a thick fortification that held the leadership of Atlas. And as soon as it was in sight the massive Penta-ped mecha would still, and turn its wrathful sight to the wall. And then the Guillotine would fall. A ton of her own special dust mixture packed into a shell would smash into the base of the wall, and the mile and a half long fortification would collapse.

               Ruby didn’t know how big the explosion would be, or how many it would kill. She just hoped and prayed that Atlas kept its refugees away from the wall, if there were any. Knowing the Atlasian military…

               Ruby leapt from the barrel, hopping once with her semblance to land behind Weiss.

               “Hey.” She rasped.

               “Hello.” Weiss answered primly.

               “Are you… okay with this?”

               “Of course.”

               A moment of painful silence hung in the air. There were a million things that needed to be said, but neither had the time nor the energy to say them.

               Finally Ruby spoke in an almost whisper, “I’m sorry.”

               Weiss froze, and then slumped. After nearly a minute she quietly said “Me too.” The sound, dripping with sadness, was nearly frozen over and lost to the icy winds.

               Ruby nodded and walked away. There would be time later, if she had the misfortune of surviving this battle.

 

 

              

               It had been months. _Months_ of constantly hunting the biggest and baddest grimm, she was absolutely rolling in cash for her bounties, it was so _fucking frustrating._ There was nothing strong enough left. Nothing was going to be able to do it.

               Why couldn’t she just fucking die?

               Why was nothing strong enough to just fucking kill her?

               Could she even die?

               Did something Salem did to her in that missing week make her fucking immortal?

               Was it related to th-

               **Nope!**

               She was just… so…. Tired. So done. She was tired of feeling all these things, all these emotions. And the pain. The pain was also something she was done with. Maybe, in hindsight, utilizing what had been considered a torture technique for hunters as a method for training her aura had been a bad idea. but fuck it! Right?

               Everything hurt.

               The ground around her was covered in the remains of the grimm that she had come to hunt. Her final idea for something that could kill her. Ages ago Oobleck had said these grimm were smart, and ancient, and powerful. And what had she said? “Lets kill it.” And now she had.

               She wondered Oobleck would have been proud. _Am I doing right by you, you absolute mad man? Am I making the world a better place for people like you?_

Ruby missed him. His crazy caffeine fueled lectures. His ideas of right and wrong. He deserved a lot more credit than he got. He deserved to be remembered by better than her.

               _He probably would like me to stay alive. Looks like he’ll get his wish too, since nothing seems to be able to kill me._

               She could pick a fight with Oscars cabal. But some of them were still her friends, and she didn’t want to think about what might happen if she won.

_I should… reconnect. To the people who care about me. Ive been cruel._

She’d talk to Jaune first. She missed Jaune. There was an ache her soul for him. She didn’t know what it was.

_They didn’t deserve any of this._

               She stops.

_Did I?_

Twenty three people stand behind her eyelids. Faceless.

               _Yes._ She thinks. _I deserved every bit of it._

_And yet._

If there was one thing Ruby was sure of, and would become ever more so in the following days and months and years, it was that no matter what she deserved, what she had was wonderful. She had friends, people who loved her, truly cared for her, Blake and Jaune and Nora and Ren and Weiss. She would come to be sure of a simple fact.

               If anything ever hurt them again, she would rend heaven and hell with her own bare hands, she would let darkness eat light and grimm consume the lands of humanity and faunas if anyone ever hurt them. That was something she could live for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, more flashbacks. 
> 
> Thats weird, I'm pretty sure i said the next thing was going to be that documentary chapter...
> 
> OwO whats this? A series? Hm, oh that's probably nothing important.
> 
> And damn it Ruby, stop being so angsty. This was supposed to fluffy retired huntress fic, why am i so bad at this.
> 
> Speaking of Ruby, I just wanted to note why she seems to have more trouble with enemies earlier in the fic. Ill try to clarify when i do the rework, but its because in the fights mentioned in those chapters shes fighting larger groups for longer periods of time and not being careful or strategic about it. After the end of the war she slowly went from careful, smart fighting to extremely aggressive "What is blocking and dodging? We die swinging our swords harder and faster like Huntsmen." style, which was more effective on large single targets than army's of relatively small ones. That and bullets still hurt, Adams weapon is just using shitty ammo and is supposed to be more of a Bloodborne stagger gun than a more aggressive type gun. At least in this fic.


	16. Chapter 16

               Two screens lit up on two separate continents. One showed the face of Specialist Winter Schnee, second in command in the Atlas Military, dressed up in her formal uniform. On the other, Weiss Schnee, CEO of the SDC and two dozen other companies, dressed in her finest business suit. Beside and behind her sat Ruby Rose, decked out in a sharp crimson suit, and her long hair pulled back to reveal her impressive collection of facial scars and the deep black bags beneath her eyes. Both were smiling pleasantly in sharp contrast to Winters carefully still expression.

 **“** Winter, Ruby and I have a proposition for you. **”**

“Alright…” Winter said, Eyeing the two sitting in on the other side of the screen.

               “We are aware you are… loyal to General Ironwood. And we respect that loyalty. We also are aware that General Ironwoods loyalty lies with Ozpin, and after everything that’s happened he is more willing to follow Oz than ever. He trusts Ozpin, or, Oscar more now than ever before and Oscar trusts him just as much. The thing is, General Ironwood is getting older, and he is still very weak, in terms of reputation. He’s had seven years to build it up, but when the council of Atlas told him to escalate near the border he followed their orders immediately. This weakness is as unacceptable in the General as the order itself. We want three things. First, we want the relic of Atlas, the Ring of Destruction. Second we want your loyalty to us, but we don’t ask for that unconditionally. We will show you that we can be trusted. Third, we want you to be the General of Atlas.”

               “That’s a lot. The ring is dangerous, why would I let it out of the vault? And, if the General is as much of a lapdog as you say Weiss, wont the council be inclined to keep him in power?”

               “Now? Absolutely, there are enough independent votes to make sure he stays. But soon? By the end of the month I will own the council. Ruby and I have been digging up blackmail, utilizing well placed bribes, and the occasional bit of coercion. Our names carry great weight with those who remember the war, and many do. Soon enough we will play our hand, and then Atlas will be for all intents and purposes under our control. Ruby will be entrusted with the ring. We both know that she is strong enough not only to wield it, but to keep it safe.” Ruby shifted uncomfortably, rubbing her right ring finger behind Weiss, out of Winters sight.

               “Why? Why all of this?” Winter asked solemnly.

               “Because Ozpin isn’t fit to lead this world, Winter. He was negligent, and Remnant paid for it. Another war is about to start, well, it was. No matter what your answer is today, Atlas will be working to de-escalate tensions with Mistral. We will also be slicing the military budget in half and the SDC weapons division will be dissolved.”

               Winter almost choked. “What? We barely have enough budget to keep our troops armed and fed with all the funds that our contractors demand! I’m not going to follow you because you thre-”

               Weiss raised a hand to request Winters silence. “If you choose to join us, this will be the best military decision Atlas has ever made. Our contractors are too integral, all of their contracts will be put up for review as well. All contracts currently owned by the SDC will be going to Reaper Armaments, who will be supplying us with higher quality armaments at wholesale. You will have budget left over. In addition Reaper has agreed to freely refit all of our Bull Heads and Bulk Heads with more efficient engines, for free.”

               At some point Ruby had stopped really paying attention to Weiss’s sales pitch, instead choosing to play a game on her scroll.

               “The funds freed from This budget change will go directly to social programs. Even after the war Atlas is the most prosperous nation, but retains the largest impoverished and homeless populations in spite of the incredibly hostile environment. That needs to change.”

               “These Reaper Armaments, who are they and exactly what quality weapons are we talking about?”

               Ruby sat up at that and slid her scroll away.

               “I, am Reaper Armaments, at the moment. You know the quality of my weapons, they will be worth every cent. As I will be selling them to you wholesale, only asking for their cost in materials and work value, without any of the ridiculous contracts that Jacques Schnee negotiated, it will cost the Atlas Military less than a quarter what you have been paying for vastly inferior products.” Ruby almost scoffed at the end of her explanation.

               Winter was a little hurt. “What do you mean “Vastly Inferior?”” she barely saw Weiss flinch before Ruby burst out talking.

               “I mean Dust!” Ruby suddenly was much more _present_ , engaged. “Who designed them? Its like they intentionally waste dust at every stage! They have superfluous cooling vents with ice dust lining, they vent nearly a quarter of their magazines, the hookup between the rifle and Atlas tech headsets is overly complex and uses too much power to maintain, forcing infantry to carry around more gear, your sidearms do nothing, the rifles kick to hard to be useful for the cannon fodder automatons and the kick would easily be completely dissipated by just fucking not letting the dust vent! What the hell!”

               Seeing her sisters long suffering expression Weiss just sighed and said “You think this is bad? You should have been there the first time. She went through the designs piece by piece. Literally.”

               “Anyway” Ruby butted back in, “The weapons you will be receiving from me are going to be improvements in every single way. It will take a while to phase out the shitty tech you use now, but it can be done.”

 

 

 

 

 

               “Lucy, listen for a moment. I want to tell you something.” Weiss spoke from her spot at the kitchen table. The house, for the first time in the week that they had been staying there, was utterly quiet. The child had gone out for the day with Jaune Arc to look into the upcoming school year.

               “Of course Miss Weiss.”

               “For many years there has been council of people who have held power, the power of black mail, sabotage, deceit and the loyalty of many fools. Ozpin, and now his successor Oscar Pine, have commanded its power. At one point this cabal stood against Salem, but now they claim to be protecting the world and attempting to keep it in balance.”

               Her secretary remained passive in appearance, though inside she was deeply confused. Was it true? Why was she being told?

               “The fact is, they’ve done a damn poor job of it. They claim careful consideration, but the fact is its been hundreds of years of inaction, and in the end when the fight against Salem came, she was defeated by her own hubris and the actions of huntresses too young to have been burdened with that incredible responsibility. In attempting to play with the people around them, they more often played themselves.” Weiss spoke in grave tones, eventually turning to face her and meet her eye.

               “I tell you this to give you the opportunity to leave my service before the end of the month. Ruby, Blake, and I have come to the decision that they can no longer be trusted with the safety of the world as Atlas and Mistral are already preparing for another _pointless_ war. The end of this month, twenty one days, will mark the official start of our campaign to bring a new era of peace to the world and end the rule of Ozpins shadow cabal.”

               “So. Knowing that. Will you stay as my assistant and help me in this endeavor, or will you take your leave? Ill understand if you choose to leave.”

               “Miss Weiss. I… Ill stay. What do you need from me?”

               “I need… you to push me into the game room.”

               “Oh.” She said numbly, “Okay.”

               The game room was a relatively large extension at the end of the hallway that also held Yang and Weiss’s rooms.  The game room had been set up with a large card table in the center. All the lights in the room were down except for one large light pointing down at the table, illuminating the stacks of documents around the edge of it. It was ominous… except for the pile of snack food and soda in the center of the table.

               “Ruby.” Weiss sighed.

               “Yee?” Ruby leaned into the light from across the table. Lucy realized she would be terrifying if not for her expression.

               “Were the snacks entirely necessary? We had this whole ominous… actually, it doesn’t matter. Turn up the lights. Lets get started.”

               Lucy nearly leapt out of her skin as the lights came up to show a second Blake turning up the lights before bursting into a small cloud of black smoke. She pushed Weiss to the closest side of table and took the last seat when Weiss gestured for her to do so.

               “So.” Weiss leaned forward. “Let us begin.”

               “First moves?” Ruby asked through a mouthful of Cheezey Poofs.

               “Yes… First moves…” Weiss narrowed her eyes at Ruby as the huntress shoveled cheese snacks into her mouth.

               “Shall I start?” Blake asked. The other two nodded and she stood and pulled off a few documents from her side of the table. “Alright, so, over the next twenty days I am going to start forming the…” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment. “Battalion, and then the thirty first will mark our first deployment. I have a few candidates for our initial garrisons. Here.” She pushed two maps out into the center of the table after motioning for Ruby to spread the snacks out of the way. “I believe that our initial garrison will number around thirty people, as I don’t have the time to train new recruits before the opening move I will have to rely on old fang members and a couple huntsmen I’ve had do work for me before. Ruby?”

               “MMMHM!” Ruby said through a mouthful of cheesy poofs, after a second of chewing she slammed back a 2 liter of some uncanny red liquid and exhaled hard. “I will be providing this garrison with the initial run of Reaper Armament’s first official series of weaponry, the Outlander Series. This set has two models of assault rifle, one model of long range anti grimm rifle, and one specialty weapon designed to kill or drive off more powerful grimm.” Ruby slid a folder to Blake, presumably the catalog of weapons from the ‘Outlander Series’. “That will be produced in a manufacturing plant I purchased four days ago in the manufacturing district of Vale. After that I will start designing and producing the Atlas series for Weiss as we discussed. As soon as I receive the feedback on the first two members of the Bloodrose Legion they will also… well, they will probably go through some redesigns… Bloodrose Legion is still a year, maybe two off, but I do have a few very good locations for our first base of operations. Uhm. Oh, right, as I mentioned the Bloodrose Legion is a long way off, but I don’t feel comfortable producing any type of mechanized infantry in the city of Vale, so until I can get a few factories set up outside the walls those are out of the question. Although, Weiss, if you want I could look into producing them in your plants in Atlas?” Weiss gave a thumbs up. “Aaaaand, yeah, full disclosure pretty much all my documents are newspapers, I don’t really have anything outside of… Yeah, cool, alright. Weiss?”

               Weiss patted the documents next to her. “This is blackmail material. In ten days I’m going to return to Atlas with Ruby and finish stacking the Atlas council with people who will follow my orders. It won’t take long because I already made sure I had my interests represented in the council, I just need enough influence to smoothly remove General Ironwood and implant my sister who has agreed to follow us in this matter. Ruby will be breaking into the Atlesian technology Vault on the same day Winter and I retrieve the Atlas relic. The Conquerors Ring, also known as the Ring of Destruction, or the Torus of Death, will go to Ruby. After we retrieve our treasures I will dissolve the SDC’s weapons decision, transfer all assets to Reaper Armaments as well as all the Atlesian Military contracts and any desired blueprints. Next Ruby will meet up with the rest of Team RNJR in Mistral, and retrieve the Lantern of Knowledge, also known as the ‘Go Fuck Yourself- Love Oz XoXo’,” Weiss pronounced each x and o individually and with immense disdain. “which I will be keeping near me, though all of us are free to use it. I…” Weiss sighed deeply. “Will be going to Vacuo with Blake sometime near the winter solstice, Lucy you are free to come though I can’t imagine you would want to, to retrieve the Rod of Shade, also known as the Rod of Creation, also also known as the ‘Who the Fuck thought this was a Good Idea? Stick.’ Blake will keep it, though same as the lamp we just want to keep them separate and out of Oz’s hands. The relic of Choice will most likely remain out of our reach as we still have no idea who got the Fall Maidens power after Cinder died, though I suppose as soon as we get some minions that will be a priority for Ozpin… If he refuses to back down.”

               “That’s bad branding. Subordinates? Lieutenants? Anything but minions.” Blake interjected. “At least to other people, I guess to us its fine.”

               “Fair. So, questions?”

               “Yes… One. The Kanjaro group. Weiss, know anything about them?”

               “Why yes… yes I do. They are good at keeping their secrets, but I have files on their operations. Not much about their Vacuo Ops, but Atlas and Vale I have solid leads on. Mistral is their home turf, so that’s where they are strongest. Why?”

               “Because they tried to kill Blake. If possible, I would like to end their operations in Vale, or at least fuck them up real good.”

               Weiss had steel in her eyes from the moment she heard they tried to hurt Blake. “Oh, that is doable. Very, very doable.”

               “We can worry about that later. First we need to talk logistics, and resources.” Blake finally spoke up again. “Here’s what I have…”

 

 

 

               The setting sun seemed to light the city on fire in the dog days of summer, the light streaming in onto Qrow Branwen sitting in his apartment on the high rises of the Vale residential district to sparkle in his half empty cup of fine scotch. It was August 17th, and he was sharing a glass with his niece, Yang Xiao-Long. She was wearing her usual ensemble, a yellow dress shirt under a fine black tailored vest, dragon patterns knitted into the velvet with a pair of pressed black trousers.

               She was back in the city laying low, tracking down a lead on the Kanjaro group who she had been waging a little war on at the behest of Vale. They were elusive, apparently eluding even Yang’s information network that she had been building over the past few years.

               As they sat, quietly enjoying the break from all the troubles of the world Yangs distinctive poppy ringtone rang out, and she quickly answered.  She frowned as she listened and said her goodbyes.

               “Hey Qrow, turn on the news.  Vale News Network.”

               He shrugged and flicked on the wall mounted tv. Soon enough the totally not Lisa Lavender appeared.

               “And in the ongoing story, a series of warehouses near the docks of Vale were attacked last night, and the fatalities are estimated to be nearing two hundred, though the number is expected to rise as the police investigators have only searched three porperties so far. On scene reporters are stating that these warehouses weren’t warehouses at all, but hideouts of the infamous criminal syndicate the Kanjaro group.”

               Yang nearly did a spit take. She stood up and took a step toward the tv. “What the hell…” she whispered.

               “Be warned citizens of Vale, the following footage is extremely graphic and contains images of dead bodies and considerable amounts of gore.” The scene pans across a darkened ware house, police can be seen milling about between bodies, cataloguing the weapons and body parts that are scattered around. On the one visible wall a long arc of blood starts on the floor and tracks up nearly eight feet. Below it four corpses are noticeably bisected, if one was to squint they would know it was from a single slash with relative certainty. “As you can see, almost all of these bodies were killed with a slashing weapon. Our cameraman was able to sneak in and grab this footage. Here you can see a group of stolen Atlesian Paladin mechanized infantry that were felled by precise shots to vital areas from a heavy rifle or cannon.” As she spoke more footage rolled, hopping between the scenes she mentioned. Yang worried her lip as she mentally catalogued the injuries on the dead. They were utterly consistent.

               “This morning seventy faunas women appeared at the local White Fang shelter, and when we reached out to the White Fang for comment they confirmed the connection between appearance of the faunas and the Kanjaro slaughter, and Blake Belladonna herself dropped in to the call to deliver an ultimatum.”

               Blakes voice, recognizable even through the noise of the phone, was steeped in a cold wrath, “-ou want a quote? Here’s a fucking quote. Kanjaro. You have made a lethal mistake. You will face a reckoning for this. The White Fang will be unlike any enemy you have faced before, I’m not some agent, the faunas aren’t… we cannot take this lying down. We are strong, and we are loyal, and we have allies who are far stronger, and far far more dangerous. Oh, and I know it was you who hired the assassins that attempted to kill me last week. Ruby had a moment to talk with them you see. This is a declaration of war in every sense of the word. Spend your last days praying, for you will die on your knees.” Blake audibly slammed the phone. Yang felt a shiver run down her spine from the ice in Blakes voice. Ruby was a bad influence on her.

               “Two freighters have also been found missing from the docks, their crews were discovered dead or tied up in freight yards nearby have claimed that they were attacked by a legion of Atlesian ghosts, and that the dead crewman belonged to the Kanjaro group as well. The survivors seemed to be unaware of the criminal connection. We have received no comment on the Atlesian ghosts outside of the descriptions received from the sailors, one of whom was a veteran that claimed the so called ghosts were shocktroopers who were part of the first wave of invaders during Atlas’s attempt to invade Vale.”

               Yang crossed her arms. “That’s Weiss.”

               “What?”

               “That’s Weiss’s semblance, she was in vale during that attack. She would probably use those phantoms. What the hell is she doing? Wait, she can’t summon enough to do two ships at once can she? That’s… a lot.”

               “Hm. Perhaps she continued training, after the war. Do you think the warehouses were Ruby then?”

               “Absolutely, all those wounds match up to her style, although four in one night… either she got a lot faster or she had help. A hell of a lot faster.”

               “You don’t think she had help?”

               “Not really. Unless they report small arms wounds or slashes… All the bodies in that clip had long and deep gashes, or were bisected. And there were blood arcs, Gambol Shroud doesn’t do that.”

               “So, why now?”

               “Well, if they tried to assassinate Blake… Oh god it’s probably because of Saffron. Damn it, I didn’t want to put her in danger.”

               “Heh, did you see that video of the assassination attempt? I don’t think she was in any danger.”

               “No, I didn’t, this is the first free time I’ve had in weeks.”

               “Oh you have to see it, it’s insane. Here.”

               The video showed the stage, Blake was standing at the front of podium, backed by Ruby, Sun, and a couple of faunas activists she recognized as minor celebrities. The address began. Yang watched carefully, at first everything seemed normal, but slowly she could see Ruby starting to look antsy. She kept glancing around, then she leaned forward with both her feet on the ground, it was clear that Sun could see her and was concerned. Blake showed signs of her instincts telling her she was in danger too, her eyes narrowed and scanned the crowd, her ear twitched, but she kept going as though nothing was wrong.

               And then Ruby was standing next to her, a fist raised in front of her. At the same moment the crack of a distant sniper rang out. Rose petals fluttered around the stage, and even at the distant camera Yang could make out the momentarily blank face of her sister. Ruby’s face contorted into a rictus of rage even as her eyes opened wide. And then the entire stage was so clouded with rose petals it was effectively a blackout smokescreen.

               “Here.” Qrow switched to another video that cut from the smokescreen. It was a phone video that traced an arc of rose petals that led far across the sky.

               “Holy shit she has gotten faster. That’s… nightmarish.”

               “Yeah. Damn, I’m glad she’s on our side.”

               “Did you see that? She moved twenty feet between camera frames.”

               “Crazy. Id be willing to bet that Blake and Weiss have gotten a lot stronger too, not as much since they don’t hunt anymore but they still train frequently.”

               “Hey they aren’t the only ones, I’ve gotten stronger too.”

               “Yeah. But…”

               “Oh shut up. I’ve trained my mind and my charm.”

               “… Listen, Yang, you should know. Weiss has had control of half the Atlas council for the past few years. My people have picked up on rumors that she’s been stocking up on blackmail material, possibly to get complete control.”

               “Why would she do that now? She already had enough votes to do whatever she wanted without any resistance. What could she want with this?”

               “… and half the money in Ruby’s bank account has disappeared. That’s about forty five million lien. Just gone.”

               “Stolen or spent?”

               “Neither, we think that she moved them into Vacuo accounts.”

               “Hm. Odd. But why are you keeping tabs on my sister?”

               “Yang, even if she is your sister she is the most powerful single combatant on remnant. And even if she wasn’t forty five million Lien being funneled into hidden bank accounts is still cause for attention.”

               “I geuss. Still. Does that mean you also spy on Blake and Weiss?”

               “You mean the most powerful CEO on the planet, who controls seventy percent of the Dust trade and owns every manufacturing plant that makes weapons for Atlas?”

               “Alright yeah.”

               “And the head of a former terrorist organization who is also a beloved public figure and unofficial leader of the faunas?”

               “Okay, I know, dust.”

               “I’m not telling you this to make you suspicious of them, I think it’s safe to trust them, though Oz thinks otherwise these days. I just thought you would want to know, so you aren’t surprised if something big goes down.”

               “Do you think this is in response to Mistral militarizing Its northern border?”

               “Wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe Weiss is trying to stop Atlas from responding with undue force?”

               “That could be it.”

               “It’s all insane. It’s only been a few years since the war, have they forgotten how horrible it all was?”

               “It’s not like the people in charge were ever part of the war, really.”

               “You should talk to them.”

               “Who?”

               “Your team.”

               “I… once this is done. Once we deal with the Kanjaro group.”

               “They could help. Hell, they may just do it for you if you wait. I’m pretty sure they just permanently ended their operations in Vale. In one night.”

               “Yeah, but, you know. Not all those people deserved to die. It’s not the way I do things, we’re supposed to bring them to justice, not be their judge, jury, and executioner.”

               “So tell them that, talk to them about it.”

               Yang was quiet for a moment. “At this point… do you really think Ru can be anything else? Or Weiss? Besides, Blake just gave a unilateral decleration of war. I understand she’s angry, and I’m not saying she’s wrong, but I think she intends to give no quarter. If you want to influence this… well, just think about it at least.”

              

 

 

 

               Ruby stepped off of her bike, letting the massive red chopper list onto its kickstand. She wore a thicker cloak than usual, and had chosen a black outfit reminiscent of days gone by, a leather corset with light armoring gave shape to her loose fitting black blouse which hung long over her black combat pants, this time laced with her trademark gravity air dust mix.

               It wasn’t necessary of course, she wasn’t going into combat. It was the nature of the meeting she was about to have she supposed. It was a formality, stepping into the house of her old team to discuss this.

               She stood in front of their large home, taking a moment to admire the Mistralan architecture. She often wondered why they had chosen the design, but she supposed they had had some pleasant times in Mistral. Between fighting for their lives, a macguffin, and running away in the dead of night to yet another continent.

               She didn’t even have to knock before the circular door slid aside. Jaune stood behind the door, tall and broad and wearing a tired smile on his stubbly face. Three broad claw marks cut his face diagonally,  flashing a picture of a much younger man with a determined jaw and blood streaming down his face behind her retinas. He was dressed in similarly formal attire, wearing his own half plate atop a fine cut hoodie and his signature jeans.

               “Hey.” He smiled, and Ruby stepped forward and grabbed him in a tight hug.

               “Hey.” She mumbled into his shoulder.

               “So, we have a new fight to win?”

               “Seems like.”

               “I heard about the Kanjaro massacre. That was you guys right?”

               “Yeah. They were nothing.”

               “Yeah, but not many can hold a candle to you.”

               “True. Sadly true.”

               They slowly let go of each other, and walked inside with the kind of silence that hangs in the air between old friends and close allies, warm and trusting and garnished with steel tinsel. They didn’t bother to remove their boots as they walked into the common room of the house, a large open concept connected to the kitchen and housing a long leather couch and several loveseats. People came and went in this house pretty often, though it belonged to Jaune and Ren and Nora all their huntsmen friends who didn’t have homes in the city wound up with their own small rooms here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blargh. Ive had a solid seventy five percent of this chapter written for the past several months, but its gone through so many rounds of editing and cutting and just. ugh. Anyway, hey, plots moving a little at least, and now Yang properly gets to show up. 
> 
> It will probably be a VERY long time before the next chapter, i want to go through and rewrite the first sixteen chapters of this because hoo boy. they need it. not considering typoes, theres just a couple of little continuity things, a plot point that got left hanging for way too long involving the hunt that Ru comes back from in chapter 1, a few interactions that need to be longer, a few scenes that need to be removed, and a lot that needs to be straight up retconned in. so. theres all that. Plus im really kinda wanting to start writing traitor again, because criminal!Ruby with Cinder, Roman, and the bad guy band is such a fun idea. especially when its more Saints Rose and less angst. who knows. Oh, and btw, Bullheads are just like the Bullheads in the show, but Bulkheads are basically Star Lifters from Supreme Commander, or in other words two bulk head cockpits attatched side by side to a pair of racks and the the tail ends stuck on the back.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, thank you all so much for commenting! im sorry i dont respond to everything, but your comments are pretty much the only reason ive continued to work on this, and i enjoy reading them very much! it really bolsters my spirits seeing people enjoy this work enough to comment!


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